The Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) today issued its decision in Zoning Board of Appeals of Lunenburg v. Housing Appeals Committee. This decision affirms a decision of the Housing Appeals Committee (HAC) that overturned the Lunenburg Zoning Board of Appeals’ denial of a comprehensive permit for a 146-unit condominium project. Among the topics the SJC addresses are whether non-subsidized affordable housing counts toward meeting the 10% threshold in M.G.L. c. 40B (it doesn’t), whether the goals of the town’s master plan outweigh the regional need for affordable housing (they don’t), and whether HAC has the power to waive a zoning nonconformity resulting from “infectious invalidity” (it does).
We’ll be posting a more detailed analysis of this decision shortly.