Planning Board’s condo complex refusal overturned by Land Court

A 57-unit multi-family residential development turned down by the Planning Board in 2019 is once again on the table after a Land Court ruling found the board did not have cause to dismiss it.

“They say that silence is golden,” Associate Justice Michael D. Vhay wrote in his decision. “That adage isn’t true in this case, as a planning board’s silence has led to suspicion that it acted out of improper motives. The Court thus remands this case to the board to have it reconsider its decision or at least explain why it did what it did.”

Brigati Village, planned for 41 Church Street and 14 West Street, would be a market rate town home community of 11 two-story buildings accessed from West Street. The Planning Board approved four of five waivers for the project.

Developer David W. Brossi alleges that the Planning Board’s denial of a waiver was based more on his refusal to offer affordable units in the proposed complex than the stated reason: two overly long dead end streets.

“Brigati Village hasn’t proven – yet – that the 2019 Board linked the two,” Vhay wrote. “But given that the Board granted a dead-end streets waiver to Hill View Estates I, declined without explanation Brigati Village’s request for the same waiver, and offered no witness at trial who explained the different results (or even testified that the waiver in Hill View Estates I was, in retrospect, a bad idea), this Court can only wonder what happened here.”

The Planning Board will re-open a public hearing on Brigati Village Monday night and continue it, on Brossi’s request, until February 28.

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