Land Use Real Estate Renewable Energy Zoning
April 20, 2023 by Paula Devereaux | Leave a Comment
We bring to your attention this post by our colleague Randy Rich of Pierce Atwood’s Energy Infrastructure Group on the 9th Circuit’s decision earlier this week in California Restaurant Association v. City of Berkeley, No. 21-16278. The court decided that the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act, 42 U.S.C. § 6297(c), preempts the City of Berkeley’s […]
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Environmental Renewable Energy Zoning
April 18, 2023 by Tess Edwards | Leave a Comment
On March 1, 2023, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell’s Municipal Law Department issued a decision (pdf) disapproving two sections of the Town of Wendell’s amended zoning bylaw, one of which prohibited stand-alone battery energy storage facilities in all districts. As previewed in our blog post last month, based on a footnote in the former […]
Environmental Renewable Energy
March 2, 2023 by Tess Edwards | Leave a Comment
Late last year, pursuant to her review authority under M.G.L. c. 40, § 32, then-Attorney General (now Governor) Maura Healey (the AG) issued a decision disapproving the Town of Carver’s moratoria on large-scale solar projects and battery storage systems. The grounds for the decision were straightforward and well-supported: citing the Supreme Judicial Court’s June, 2022 […]
Environmental Justice Land Use
January 10, 2023 by Tess Edwards | Leave a Comment
In GreenRoots, Inc. v. Energy Facilities Siting Board, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC), for only the second time, had an opportunity to interpret the Environmental Justice Policy (EJ Policy) promulgated by the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EOEEA). The first time, in the 2014 case City of Brockton v. Energy Facilities Siting […]
Chapter 91
July 15, 2022 by Paula Devereaux | Leave a Comment
In this April 2021 blog post we discussed the Superior Court’s decision in Armstrong vs. Theoharides. Since then the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) took the case on direct appellate review and earlier this week the SJC issued a decision (pdf) affirming the Superior Court. The SJC found that the longstanding procedure for approving Municipal Harbor […]
Environmental Land Use Wetlands
September 21, 2021 by Michelle O'Brien | Leave a Comment
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) recently handed a victory to a conservation commission seeking to impose an enforcement order on a property owner who bought land containing unauthorized fill placed there by a prior owner 35 years before. The SJC ruled that the “statute of repose” in the state Wetlands Protection Act, which protects […]
April 19, 2021 by Paula Devereaux | Leave a Comment
The Superior Court’s April 1, 2021 decision in Armstrong v. Theoharides (pdf) was no April Fool’s joke and could have far-reaching consequences for Massachusetts waterfront development. In a case against the Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) brought by the Conservation Law Foundation and residents of the Harbor Towers condominium complex in Boston, the […]
Construction Environmental Real Estate
July 24, 2020 by Joel Quick | Leave a Comment
On July 21, 2020, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey struck down a by‑law passed by the Town of Brookline that would have disallowed most construction that included “fossil fuel infrastructure.” The Attorney General’s decision can be found here. This by-law would have prevented gas installations in new or substantially renovated buildings and would have required […]
Environmental
June 10, 2020 by Daniel Bailey | Leave a Comment
On June 3, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated an air permit issued by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and remanded the matter to the agency for further analysis. The case is Town of Weymouth v. Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. The First Circuit’s decision is linked here. […]
March 22, 2018 by Michelle O'Brien | Leave a Comment
Lawsuits to recover cleanup costs and property damages resulting from environmental contamination can be expensive and time-consuming. Plaintiffs should be sure their claims are timely before embarking on the litigation path. M.G.L. c. 21E (Chapter 21E), the Massachusetts Oil and Hazardous Material Release Prevention and Response Act, contains a statute of limitations provision, Section 11A. […]
