User:Staircase.Effects/Zuckerman v Hadley

Zuckerman v Town of Hadley was a 2004 decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court regarding the use of zoning controls to limit municipal growth.

Background
Since 1988, the Town of Hadley, MA had enforced a zoning restriction which limited the annual number of building permits for any individual parcel to 10% of the total number permissible under the subdivision regulations. The plaintiff, Martha Zuckerman, claimed that the rate of development ordinance restricted her possible income from the sale of her land and thus constituted a regulatory taking. The Land Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff and the town appealed. The case was transferred to the Supreme Judicial Court on its initiative from the Appeals Court.

Question
Are permanent restrictions on growth unconstitutional?

Holding
The Supreme Judicial Court upheld that unless there are exceptional circumstances, or when used as a temporary measure to provide "breathing room" for a larger planning process, restrictions on growth do not serve a legitimate public purpose and are unconstitutional under due process.

Rational relation / Constitutional limits
We recognize the enormous pressures faced by rural and suburban towns presented with demands of development, and that towns may seek to prevent or to curtail the visual blight and communal degradation that growth unencumbered by guidance or restraint may occasion. In this respect, however, Hadley is no different from other towns facing the pressures attendant to an influx of growth. Like all such towns, Hadley may, in an effort to preserve its character and natural resources, adopt any combination of zoning bylaws, and participate in a wide variety of State-enacted programs, that may, as a practical matter, limit growth by physically limiting the amount of land  available for development. Hadley may also slow the rate of its growth within reasonable time limits... -J Cordy

The central question in Zuckerman v Hadley was whether the ordinance met the test of Constitutional relation--that is, whether the zoning control is sufficiently connected to a larger community purpose. Whereas in previous cases regarding growth controls there was an evident connection to larger goals---such as in Sturges v Chilmark, where an unlimited building cap was upheld as an environmental protection for an aquifer, thus benefiting the greater region--Hadley's bylaw was not part of a greater planning process, such as a comprehensive plan. Furthermore, the Supreme Court ruled that as the overall effect of Hadley's restrictions was to effectively deflect population growth onto neighboring communities, the bylaw was detrimental to the greater good of the region.

Related cases
Construction Industry Ass'n v. City of Petaluma, 522 F.2d 897, 909 (9th Cir. 1975)

Sturges vs. Town of Chilmark, 380 Mass. 246