Building the optimal project team, ensuring project coordination, and developing and implementing effective permitting and strategies are only a few of the challenges faced in meeting land use project goals. Nutter McClennen & Fish knows these challenges. Our Land Use group has the collective experience and specialized knowledge to provide innovative and effective strategies for land use projects of all types and sizes.

We work with our clients to secure permits and approvals in a timely manner for complex and challenging projects, including upholding permits on appeal or challenging denials of permits.  Our attorneys use their expertise and resources to extend critical competitive advantage to clients. Landowners, developers, businesses, large retailers, nonprofit organizations, government authorities, and quasi-public organizations have all benefited from our attorneys’ exceptional counsel.

The Right Approach
Our attorneys invest the time necessary to fully understand the client’s business needs, company culture and strategic objectives. Clients rely on us to successfully guide their land use project from inception to completion – delivering strategy, advocacy, diplomacy, technical legal advice, and negotiating skills critical to successful land use projects.

With specializations in real estate, financing, permitting, environmental issues and litigation, our Land Use group has the inter-disciplinary expertise required to guide our clients through the entire lifecycle of their project. Our attorneys consistently monitor emerging regulations and statutory and procedural changes to identify and to extend our clients’ competitive edge at every turn.

We work hard to maintain open lines of communication with our clients and pride ourselves on our responsiveness to client needs and our ability to coordinate with all members of a development team with other necessary expertise. Efficient staffing, including optimal partner-associate ratios, enables us to add maximum value at a competitive price. Dedicated partner attention throughout the project similarly ensures that our clients benefit from our experienced strategic representation. 

Experience
Our attorneys advise clients on a host of issues related to land use and environmental permitting and regulatory matters in administrative and judicial settings, as well as project team planning and coordination. We represent applicants before local, regional, state and federal authorities, and boards and agencies, including planning and zoning boards, city councils, conservation commissions, historic commissions, boards of health and redevelopment and other regional authorities, including the Cape Cod Commission and the Martha’s Vineyard Commission.

Similarly, our attorneys have expertise in all zoning and subdivision issues, Chapter 40B affordable housing issues, urban redevelopment programs, Chapter 21E (including covenants not to sue and activity and use limitations), and hazardous materials issues such as brownfields and superfund sites. Many of our current projects involve major waterfront development, including Chapter 91 and coastal wetlands permitting, and federal permitting. 

Below are representative land use matters that have been handled by our practice group:

Commercial Development Projects

Representative projects for our long-time client National Development of New England include:

• The permitting for Mystic Center in Medford, Massachusetts, a mixed-use, transit-oriented project near Wellington Circle, including drafting of significant amendments to the Medford zoning ordinance to allow a mixed-use project, MEPA compliance, changes to Chapter 91 license, and an MDC agreement covering community benefits and project mitigation; and
• All permitting for Forge Park in Franklin, Massachusetts, a 200-acre industrial park, including negotiation of a development agreement with the Town of Franklin, rezoning, MEPA compliance, permits for master drainage plan, donation of land to the MBTA for a new commuter rail station, subdivision approval, and site plan approvals.
• The negotiation of new zoning for a new mixed-use, smart growth project at Assembly Square in Somerville, including a development agreement with the city addressing build-out, real estate taxation, mitigation and other public benefit payments.

Environmental /Permitting

Nutter represents South Shore Tri-Town Development Corporation (SSTTDC) in real estate, environmental, and permitting aspects of the redevelopment of the former South Weymouth Naval Air Station.  To date, Nutter represented SSTTDC in obtaining a special review procedure under the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act, in negotiating the disposition and development agreement with the master developer selected for the project, and in the acquisition of approximately 550 acres of land via an economic development conveyance and a public benefit conveyance under the Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC) from the United States of America, acting by and through the Departments of the Navy and the Interior (National Park Service), and in the re-zoning of the land for smart growth development (including the adoption of new, form-based zoning by the three host communities during the summer of 2005).

Nutter also represented SSTTDC in negotiations concerning privatizing responsibility for environmental cleanup in order to best accomplish cleanup and redevelopment goals at the same time, which involved negotiations with the Navy, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, and others, including negotiating a grant of environmental restriction to control the use of the land during cleanup, a brownfields covenant not to sue with the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General, several types of environmental insurance policies, and a guaranteed fixed-price contract with the environmental cleanup contractor. 

Economic Redevelopment

In addition to our work for SSTTDC, Nutter attorneys currently represent several redevelopment authorities in a broad range of activities, including:

• Redevelopment plan amendments
• Parcel acquisition and assembly
• Eminent domain activities
• Relocation matters
• Project permitting and
• Leasing 

Many of these projects involve the acquisition and redevelopment of contaminated properties, requiring site remediation and state and federal assistance for clean up and reuse.  Representative projects include the acquisition and development of a regional multimodal transportation facility, the development of a downtown waterfront park, and the acquisition and tenanting of major urban industrial properties.

Land Use Practice on Cape Cod

With a full-service office in Hyannis since 1986, Nutter has represented many of Cape Cod’s businesses, health care institutions, nonprofit institutions and individuals, along with national companies and public utilities before the Cape Cod Commission, a regional land use and regulatory agency, as well as in towns throughout the Cape in areas of zoning, subdivision and regulatory permitting.

Nutter has represented Cape Cod Healthcare, Inc., and its affiliates, Cape Cod Hospital, Falmouth Hospital and the Visiting Nurses Association, in connection with all of its land use permitting and development on Cape Cod, including:

• Providing insight and expertise in the health care system’s strategic permitting process
• Obtaining approval from the Cape Cod Commission of a development agreement for a forty-acre ambulatory medical campus in Hyannis
• Obtaining Cape Cod Commission and local permits for a 60,000 square foot addition to Falmouth Hospital and for a five-story patient bed addition to Cape Cod Hospital
• Drafting and adoption of Medical Service Overlay zoning districts in both the towns of Barnstable and Yarmouth
• Successfully obtaining permits and approvals for additions to and new construction of satellite health care facilities in Mashpee, Sandwich, Bourne and Harwich

Nutter also has represented the YMCA of Cape Cod in negotiations with the Town of Sandwich that allowed for the transfer of residential development rights via utilization of a conservation restriction, while maintaining campground and recreational uses on the site. This was the result of Nutter’s successful representation of the YMCA through the District of Critical Planning Concern designation of the property by the Cape Cod Commission.

Our unique experience brings an ability to provide strategic development counsel and representation.

Land Use Litigation

Nutter represents Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc. in connection with the land use permitting of both new and renovated stores in numerous municipalities, including securing special permits, site plan approvals, orders of condition, and similar development approvals.  We have also represented Shaw’s Supermarkets, Inc. and several developers building Shaw’s-anchored shopping centers in successfully defending appeals of these approvals in both the Massachusetts Land Court and Superior Court.

Chair: Robert A. Fishman