These houses are on Waterman Avenue in the Eden Park neighborhood, just east of Route 95 and south of the Auburn neighborhood of Cranston.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

In the past six months, 34 houses have been sold in Eden Park, an established residential neighborhood in northeast Cranston, and the houses that sold spent an average of 51 days on the market, a respectable record in today’s market, according to real estate agent Laurie Cianci.

“It’s a beautiful place,” said Frank Mattiucci, who has lived in Eden Park, on Howland Avenue, since 1965.

Residents like the short commute to Providence, and despite the convenient location, he said, many streets are quiet and attractive, with many houses built between 1900 and 1950 on smaller lots with mature trees.

Mattiucci said this quality of life is threatened by a concrete-batching plant approved last year for a site off Pontiac Avenue, on Marine Drive. Mattiucci is president of the Cranston Citizens for Responsible Zoning and Development, which organized to fight the Cullion Concrete Corp.’s plans.

Mattiucci said the controversy has affected the real estate market in Eden Park, and that some people who might otherwise buy houses there are waiting to see how the issue is resolved. “Buyers are cautious,” he said.

“It looks like [the controversy] is stalemated,” he added. “We’re very, very disappointed that nothing has been done, and how our elected officials have let us down.”

Yet Cianci, of RE/MAX Metro in Providence, said Eden Park’s relative affordability has kept business going even during the downturn in the general real estate market and the tightening in the mortgage market. She said she recently sold an Eden Park house that was in foreclosure for $170,000 to a single mother who had grown up in the neighborhood. And an Eden Park two-family that she listed recently is under contract.

Cianci said selling multifamily properties is more challenging than selling single-family houses in today’s market, and selling three-families is more difficult than selling two-families. “There is a surplus of multifamilies on the market right now,” she said.

More than 50 single-family houses were listed for sale in Eden Park last week, Cianci said, with an average of 83 days on the market. The prices started at $174,000 for a three-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath bungalow built in 1935, with 1406 square feet of space, and ended at $309,900 for a four-bedroom, two-bath house built in 1965 with 2,410 square feet of living space.

Arthur Moreira, an independent builder who lives in Cranston, said he already has a contract on a spec house he finished two weeks ago at 98 Forest St. The ranch-style house was on the market for $320,000, he said. Moreira said he builds one or two houses a year, a steady pace that has not slowed despite the softening in the real estate market. He said he bought one of the few undeveloped parcels in Eden Park and subdivided it, so he is selling new houses in a neighborhood of primarily older residences. His next Eden Park project will be a Colonial-style house.

“As long as you price them right, they sell,” Moreira said.

cdunn@projo.com