Real Estate Article: Contract Zoning and Development Exactions: IDC Bellingham and Its Implications
6/1/2004
Written by Mintz Levin member, Paul D. Wilson, for the Boston Bar Journal, May/June 2004.
Developers and the towns in which they seek to build have long struggled over the impacts of proposed developments. A zoning tool called a "development exaction" has emerged as one way of dealing with such impacts. A few months ago, in Durand v. IDC Bellingham, L.L.C., 440 Mass. 45 (2003), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court considered exactions for the first time in four decades. In the process, the Court made strange bedfellows of developers and town governments.
This article first describes the three cases that led to IDC Bellingham, then examines the majority opinion in IDC Bellingham, as well as the biting, substantively dissenting opinion of three of the seven justices. Finally, it attempts to address a few of the remaining open questions about development exactions and contract zoning.
Paul is a member in the firm's Boston office and practices in the Litigation Section. A general civil litigator, he has significant expertise in real estate and land use disputes, in health care litigation, and in business disputes that involve allegations of bad faith or unfair practices.
