FELICIA R. PENN & another [1]
v.
TOWN OF BARNSTABLE & others. [2]
Heard: April 11, 2019.
Civil
action commenced in the Land Court Department on January
5, 2017. The case was heard by Michael D. Vhay, J.,
on motions for summary judgment, and motions to amend the
judgment were considered by him.
Charles S. McLaughlin, Jr., Assistant Town Counsel, for town
of Barnstable.
Edward
W. Kirk for the plaintiffs.
Present: Hanlon, Desmond, & Shin, JJ.
SHIN,
J.
Pursuant
to G. L. c. 40A, § 5, sixth par., once a municipal
legislative body rejects a proposed zoning ordinance or
bylaw, it generally may not reconsider the same proposal for
two years. At issue is whether the town of Barnstable's
(town) legislative body, its town council, violated the
two-year bar when it adopted a zoning amendment calling for
the creation of the Hyannis Parking Overlay District (HPOD),
despite having rejected a similar proposal to create the HPOD
a few months earlier. On the parties' cross motions for
summary judgment, a judge of the Land Court concluded that
the two proposals were substantially the same, triggering
application of the two-year bar and annulling the town's
adoption of the amendment. We agree and thus affirm.
Background.
The
relevant facts are undisputed. In 2013 the town supervised a
study of commercial parking lots in and around Hyannis Harbor
and determined that, while all of the lots had valid
operating licenses, not all had zoning approval. The town
also determined that in some instances there were
inconsistencies between the number of parking spaces allowed
by the licensing authority and the number of parking spaces
approved by the zoning authority.
To
resolve these discrepancies and create uniformity, a
subcommittee of the town council proposed in December 2015 to
amend the town's zoning ordinance to create the HPOD,
which would overlay two existing districts, a residential
district and the Harbor District. The town council placed the
proposed amendment on its legislative docket as Item No.
2016-54. The overarching purpose of the amendment was to
authorize "as of right" operation of commercial
parking lots on land within the HPOD that "ha[d] some
legal pre-existing nonconforming status or [were] licensed as
of May 1, 2014 as an open air parking lot involving the
temporary storage of vehicles." The amendment then set
out site-development standards governing operation of the
lots within the HPOD; those standards addressed, among other
things, the number of parking spaces allowed on the lots,
dimensional requirements, and demarcation of emergency-access
aisles and property boundaries.
The
town council voted to refer Item No. 2016-54 to the
town's planning board, which held a public hearing on the
proposal in February 2016.[3] Afterward, the board members voted
four to one not to recommend adoption of Item No. 2016-54,
partly on the belief that the amendment should be deferred
until a further parking study was completed. On March 24,
2016, the town council took its own vote on the proposal,
[4]
with seven members voting for adoption and four members
voting against it. This resulted in Item No. 2016-54 failing
to pass for lack of two-thirds support.[5]
Two
weeks later the town council voted to "reconsider"
Item No. 2016-54 and posted notice that it would do so at its
May 5, 2016 meeting, which was later continued to June 16,
2016. At the June 16 meeting, however, the council voted
instead to "withdrawn" Item No. 2016-54, stating
its "understanding [that] future changes will be made to
this agenda item." The council then docketed a new item,
which it called Item No. 2016-166, and voted to refer it to
the planning board and to schedule a joint public hearing on
July 21, 2016.
Item
No. 2016-166 differed from Item No. 2016-54 in three ways.
First, in the definitions section, Item No. 2016-166
clarified that "[c]ommercial surface parking lots shall
not include structures, fully or partially enclosed, that
accommodate vehicle parking spaces." Second, in the
section governing computation of parking spaces, Item No.
2016-166 added in two places a proviso that "the number
of Commercial Surface Parking spaces shall not exceed the
number determined as of the effective date of this
ordinance," even where other uses of a parcel are
"subsequently discontinued." Third, Item No.
2016-166 added a requirement that "[t]he lot owner shall
submit to the Building Commissioner a plan of the Commercial
Surface Parking lot drawn and stamped by a Registered
Professional Land Surveyor" and specified that
"[a]ny changes to the lot boundaries or internal
configuration shall require that a new record parking plan be
prepared and filed in the same manner."[6]
At the
public hearing on July 21, 2016, the town council and the
planning board jointly heard testimony, at the close of which
the planning board voted three to two to recommend approval
of Item No. 2016-166. The town council then voted (1) eleven
to two that "Item [No.] 2016-166 is not a proposed
zoning ordinance which has been previously acted upon
unfavorably by the [t]own [c]ouncil and is not the same
ordinance which was unfavorably acted upon by the [t]own
[c]ouncil as Item [No.] 2016-54"; (2) ten to three that
"Item [No.] 2016-166 contains specific, substantive, ...