Agenda - Planning Commission - 08/02/2012

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June 25, 2012 1 Volume 61 No. 12 Zoning Bulletin Regis appealed. DECISION: Vacated and matter remanded. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the Regis East project had an educational purpose, but that a ques- tion of fact remained (for the Land Court to decide) as to whether its educational purpose was primary and dominated over other purposes —so as to qualify it for exemptions from local zoning regulations under the Dover Amendment. The court first determined that the Dover Amendment protects "only those uses serving primarily educational purposes." The court emphasized that the word "education" is a "broad and comprehensive term," and that the Dover Amendment protec- tions are not limited to "protection of traditional or conventional educational regimes." Thus, "[a] proposed use of land or struc- tures may have an educational purpose notwithstanding that it serves nontraditional communities of learners in a manner tailored to their individual needs and capabilities." Accordingly, Regis East's proposed promotion of the "cognitive and physical well being of elderly persons" through academic and physical instruction could be an educational purpose under the Dover Amendment, concluded the court. Still, said the court, to be eligible for Dover Amendment protections, a landowner must demonstrate that its use of land will have as its "primary or dominant purpose" a goal that can reasonably be described as "educationally significant." Thus here, the court said that Regis must show not only that Regis East will serve educational purposes, but that such purposes are "primary or dominant" —that the educational purposes "predominate over Regis East's residential and recreational components." The court explained that in order for Regis East to qualify for Dover Amendment protection, Regis had to establish that the residential and recreational aspects of Regis East would not constitute its primary purpose but instead would support the project's dominant educational purpose of providing academic and health - related instruction to older adults. Addressing the summary judgment motion brought by the Town (which asked the court to find there were no material is- sues of fact and to decide the matter in its favor on the law alone), the court determined that Regis had shown that the record contained evidence sufficient to create a material dispute of fact as to whether Regis East had as its dominant purpose a goal that 4 © 2012 Thomson Reuters