{"id":1139,"date":"2015-02-27T22:38:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-27T22:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sherin.com\/real-estate\/2015\/02\/27\/massachusetts-permit-session-jurisdiction-explained\/"},"modified":"2017-10-03T17:21:53","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T17:21:53","slug":"massachusetts-permit-session-jurisdiction-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sherin.com\/real-estate\/2015\/02\/27\/massachusetts-permit-session-jurisdiction-explained\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts Permit Session Jurisdiction Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On February 27<sup>th<\/sup>, the Massachusetts Appeals Court again held that certain land use appeals under Mass. G.L.c. 185, \u00a73A, cannot be brought in Housing Court \u2013 they may only be brought in Superior Court or in the permit session of the Land Court.<\/p>\n<p>In <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Skawski v. Greenfield Investors Property Development, LLC<\/span>, Mass. Appeals Court Docket No. 13-P-1947, the Court held that the Housing Court did not have jurisdiction over abutters\u2019 appeal of a zoning special permit.\u00a0 The Greenfield Planning Board had issued a special permit for a 135,000-square-foot retail facility.\u00a0 The abutters elected to file their appeal in the Western Division of the Housing Court which, they contended, was an appropriate forum under the provisions of G.L.c. 40A, \u00a717.\u00a0 The developer argued that since its project qualified for the Land Court\u2019s permit session, the appeal could not be heard in the Housing Court.\u00a0 Three and one-half years later, the Appeals Court agreed, ruling that the developer\u2019s motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction should have been granted.\u00a0 Since the time within which to bring a timely appeal has long since passed, the abutters\u2019 choice of the wrong forum is fatal to their claim.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The Streamline Permitting Act of 2006 made a number of statutory changes in an effort to expedite permitting of large development projects.\u00a0 Among these changes, G.L.c. 185, \u00a73A established a separate session of the Land Court, known as the permit session. \u00a0The permit session was given original jurisdiction, concurrently with the Superior Court, over appeals of any municipal, regional or state permit in cases in which \u201cthe underlying project or development involves either 25 of more dwelling units or the construction or alteration of 25,000 square feet or more of gross floor area or both.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The decision in <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Skawski<\/span> is not surprising in light of the Appeals Court\u2019s earlier decision in <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Buccaneer Development, Inc. v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals of Lenox<\/span>, 83 Mass. App. Ct. 40 (2012) (case commenced in the Land Court\u2019s permit session and transferred to the Western Division of the Housing Court should have been transferred back to the Land Court).\u00a0 What is significant about <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Skawski<\/span> is that it illustrates the hazards when litigants seek what they perceive to be a convenient, but the wrong, forum.\u00a0 The abutters in <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Skawski<\/span>, and Town Counsel in <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Buccaneer Development<\/span>, apparently preferred to litigate in the Western Division of the Housing Court.\u00a0 In <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Buccaneer Development<\/span>, transfer to the Housing Court \u201cmerely\u201d slowed the proceedings when the case was eventually transferred back to the original forum (five years after it was commenced).\u00a0 In <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Skawski<\/span>, filing suit in the preferred, but wrong, forum turned out to be fatal to the abutters\u2019 claim.<\/p>\n<p>In zoning appeals, as in so much of land use permitting, the success of a project or an appeal may depend upon correctly dotting the i\u2019s and crossing the t\u2019s at every step, including in the choice of forum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On February 27th, the Massachusetts Appeals Court again held that certain land use appeals under Mass. G.L.c. 185, \u00a73A, cannot be brought in Housing Court \u2013 they may only be brought in Superior Court or in the permit session of the Land Court. In Skawski v. Greenfield Investors Property Development, LLC, Mass. Appeals Court Docket [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Massachusetts Permit Session Jurisdiction Explained - Real Estate<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sherin.com\/real-estate\/2015\/02\/27\/massachusetts-permit-session-jurisdiction-explained\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Massachusetts Permit Session Jurisdiction Explained - Real Estate\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On February 27th, the Massachusetts Appeals Court again held that certain land use appeals under Mass. 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