81 Spooner Road LLC v. Town of Brookline

• Decision Date: 04 August 2008
• Docket Number: SJC-10104
• Citation: 452 Mass. 109,891 N.E.2d 219
• Parties: 81 SPOONER ROAD LLC v. TOWN OF BROOKLINE.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

891 N.E.2d 219

452 Mass. 109

81 SPOONER ROAD LLC v. TOWN OF BROOKLINE.

SJC-10104

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued May 8, 2008.

Decided August 4, 2008.

Jeffrey P. Allen, Wellesley (Eric B. Goldberg with him) for the plaintiff.

Jennifer Dopazo, Town Counsel (John J. Buchheit, Assistant Town Counsel, with her) for the defendant.

Richard W. Benka, for Moderator's Committee on Zoning of the Town of Brookline, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.

James Gray Wagner & Thomas J. Urbelis, Boston, for City Solicitors & Town Counsel Association, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.

Present: MARSHALL, C.J., GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, CORDY, & BOTSFORD, JJ.

SPINA, J.

Section 5.20 of the zoning bylaw of the town of Brookline (town) employs a maximum floor-to-area ratio (the numerator is the "gross floor area" of a building; the denominator is the area of the lot on which it sits) to regulate land use in different zones within the town. 81 Spooner Road LLC, a developer, challenged this provision of the bylaw in an action filed in the Land Court under G.L. c. 240, § 14A, claiming that the bylaw violates G.L. c. 40A, § 3, second par., which states, in relevant part:

"No zoning ordinance or by-law shall regulate or restrict the interior area of a single family residential building ... provided, however, that such ... structures may be subject to reasonable regulations concerning the bulk and height of structures and determining yard sizes, lot area, setbacks, open space, parking and building coverage requirements...."

On cross motions for summary judgment, a judge in the Land Court concluded that the bylaw did not violate the statute because it regulated the exterior of structures and only incidentally affected the interior area of the single-family home proposed by the developer. He awarded judgment for the town and the developer appealed. The developer filed an application for direct appellate review, which we granted. We now affirm the judgment of the Land Court.¹

1. Facts. The facts are not in dispute. On April 8, 2005, the town's building commissioner issued a building permit authorizing the developer to build a house on a vacant lot on Spooner Road, located in an S-10 zoning district. The zoning bylaw permits single-family homes on lots having a minimum area of 10,000 square feet in an S-10 zoning district. Table 5.01 of the bylaw specifies the uses, the minimum lot area, the maximum floor-to-area ratio,² the minimum lot width, the maximum building height, the setback requirements, and the open space requirements for each zoning district in the town. The floor-to-area ratio applicable to the S-10 zoning district is .3. Neighbors challenged the building permit on several grounds. Relevant to this appeal is the claim that the floor-to-area ratio exceeded the maximum .3 permitted under the bylaw.

The building commissioner declined to rescind the building permit, and the neighbors appealed to the town's zoning board of appeals (board). After a hearing, the board found that the top floor of the house was designed and was intended to be used as habitable space,³ not as an attic.⁴ Because it was habitable space, the board ruled the upper floor area must be included in the gross floor area⁵ of the house for purposes of determining the floor-to-area ratio. The board concluded that the gross floor area of the house produced a floor-to-area ratio that exceeded the maximum permitted under the bylaw, and it rescinded the building permit. The developer brought suit in the Land Court challenging the validity of the floor-to-area sections of the bylaw as they apply to single-family homes.

2. Discussion. The developer argues that a bylaw may have no effect, incidental or otherwise, on the interior area of a single-family residence without running afoul of G.L. c. 40A, § 3, second par. The statute's prohibition on regulation or restriction of the interior area of such houses it contends, is "without qualification," or absolute. Alternatively,⁶ the developer argues that although the proviso in § 3, second par., authorizes municipalities to subject single-family residences to "reasonable regulations concerning ... bulk and height ... and determining yard sizes, lot area, setbacks, open spaces, parking and building coverage requirements," these are exterior factors related to the density of residential development and other purposes for which zoning was established, including "to lessen congestion in the streets; to conserve health; ... to prevent overcrowding of land, to avoid undue concentration of population; ... to conserve the value of land and buildings ...; to encourage the most appropriate use of land throughout the city or town," St.1975, c. 808, § 2A; and the town's bylaw regulating "bulk," with its floor-to-area ratio, impermissibly regulates the interior area of single-family residences by establishing a cap on such space.

The town contends that, in regulating exterior and bulk of houses under the proviso in § 3, second par., municipalities may have an indirect effect on interior area without offending the prohibition against the regulation or restriction of interior area. It argues that the prohibition in the statute applies only to direct regulation of interior area. It further argues that the legislative history of the prohibition against regulating or restricting the interior area of single-family residences indicates an intent only to prohibit a form of "snob" zoning based on minimum floor area.

We begin by examining the scope of the authority granted under the proviso in § 3, second par. The proviso identifies several means of regulating structures used for single-family residences, including bulk, height, setbacks, yard size, open space, parking, and building coverage requirements. Alone or in combination, these devices create a cap on the size of any single-family house that can be built on any lot. That is, with the exception of height regulations, each device prevents construction that would cover all or substantial portions of a lot. In the case of height regulations, the size of a house is restricted by the number of floors that can be built. Because these zoning devices affect the exterior dimensions of a house, they necessarily will affect its interior area. If § 3 prohibits all restriction of the interior area of a residence, as the developer argues, then none of the regulatory devices mentioned in the proviso in § 3, second par., would be valid, and single-family residences could be constructed to cover an entire lot, with no height restriction. Houses, as well as lots, could abut, wreaking havoc on the purposes of zoning. We do not construe a statute in a manner that renders its purposes ineffective or its words meaningless. Adamowicz v. Ipswich, 395 Mass. 757, 760, 481 N.E.2d 1368 (1985).

A statute must be construed "according to the intent of the Legislature ascertained from all its words construed by the ordinary and approved usage of the language, considered in connection with the cause of its enactment, the mischief or imperfection to be remedied and the main object to be accomplished, to the end that the purpose of its framers may be effectuated." Hanlon v. Rollins, 286 Mass. 444, 447, 190 N.E. 606 (1934). The plain language of the proviso in § 3, second par., permits a zoning bylaw to regulate single-family residences through devices that operate against the exterior of such structures, and such regulation necessarily will affect its interior area.

The appearance of the word "bulk" in the proviso in § 3, second par., further supports a determination that the Legislature intended zoning devices permissibly to affect the interior area of single-family residences. Unlike the other devices mentioned in the proviso, which operate against the exterior of a building or structure, a "bulk" regulation operates in a more complex manner involving consideration of interior area. The current version of G.L. c. 40A, "The Zoning Act," was inserted by St.1975, c. 808, § 3. Section 2A⁷ of that legislation contains a legislative statement of the purposes of the zoning act and enumerates ways zoning regulations may operate, including the use of restrictions of both "size" and "bulk" of buildings. Although these two terms are often used synonymously,⁸ their appearance in the same statutory series requires us to construe them differently if each is to have meaning. See Tamulevich v. Robie, 426 Mass. 712, 713-714, 690 N.E.2d 1231 (1998); Commonwealth v. O'Keefe, 48 Mass.App.Ct. 566, 567-569, 723 N.E.2d 1000 (2000).

At least one commentator has noted that when "bulk" and "size" are used interchangeably, they refer to width, length, and height, but "bulk may also be expressed in terms of [a building's] gross floor area." 3 A.H. Rathkopf & D.A. Rathkopf, Zoning and Planning § 54:2, at 54-2 (2005). "[T]he bulk of a building may be measured or restricted in terms of the percentage of the lot which it may cover ('maximum lot coverage') multiplied by the number of allowed stories in the building.... A more flexible method of regulating bulk is establishing a ratio between the size of the lot and the gross floor area of the principal building to be erected thereon...." Id. at 54-2 to 54-3. Before the enactment of the current G.L. c. 40A, we recognized that regulation of a building by its bulk may involve consideration of its interior area. See Woods v. Newton, 351 Mass. 98, 102, 217 N.E.2d 728 (1966) ("essential scheme" of ordinance is to maintain relation between lot area and building bulk through use of floor-to-area ratio). See also Smith v. Board of Appeals of Brookline, 366 Mass. 197, 198, 316 N.E.2d 501 (1974); Josephs v. Board of Appeals of Brookline, 362 Mass. 290, 297, 299, 285 N.E.2d 436 (1972).

We conclude that regulation of the bulk of a building by considering its internal area, as through the use of a floor-to-area ratio, is a generally recognized and accepted principle of...