Zoning – Standing – Use variance

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Where (1) the zoning board of appeals of Northborough granted a use variance to build a warehouse within the town’s groundwater protection overlay district and (2) plaintiffs who live across the street from the proposed warehouse appealed to the Superior Court pursuant to G.L.c. 40A, §17, the Superior Court judge’s order dismissing the plaintiffs’ complaint for lack of standing should be affirmed because the plaintiffs failed to present a triable issue of fact that they will be aggrieved by the proposed warehouse.

“The zoning board of appeals of Northborough (zoning board or board) granted a use variance to Cable Matters Inc. (Cable Matters) to build a 20,000 square foot warehouse. The property on which Cable Matters proposed to construct and operate the warehouse is located in the industrial zoning district of Northborough (town), and the proposed building and use are permitted in that district. However, the property is also within Area 1 of the town’s groundwater protection overlay district (groundwater overlay district). The groundwater overlay district does not permit warehouses, and it is for this reason that Cable Matters was required to obtain a use variance, which, as we have already noted, the board granted.

“The plaintiffs, who live across the street from the proposed warehouse, appealed from the board’s decision to the Superior Court pursuant to G.L.c. 40A, §17. Acting on Cable Matters’s motion for summary judgment, a Superior Court judge concluded that the plaintiffs lacked standing because they failed to show that they were aggrieved by the decision of the zoning board to allow the proposed warehouse. The plaintiffs appealed from that ruling to the Appeals Court, where, in an unpublished decision, a panel of that court vacated the judgment on the ground that, in assessing the plaintiffs’ standing, the judge should have considered not only Cable Matters’s proposed use of the warehouse, but also ‘the uses to which an ordinary 20,000 square foot warehouse’ might be put in the future. Stone v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals of Northborough, 104 Mass. App. Ct. 1123 (2024).

“Where, as here, there was no information to suggest that the warehouse would be used other than as represented by Cable Matters, or in a materially different way than as approved by the zoning board and by the town’s planning board (planning board), we conclude that the judge properly considered the issue of the plaintiffs’ standing solely in view of Cable Matters’s proposed use. Further, we discern no error in the judge’s conclusion that the plaintiffs failed to present a triable issue of fact that they will be aggrieved by the proposed warehouse. We accordingly affirm the Superior Court judge’s order dismissing the plaintiffs’ complaint for lack of standing.”

Stone v. Zoning Board of Appeals of Northborough (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-093-25) (26 pages) (Wolohojian, J.) The case was heard by Karin M. Bell, J., on a motion for summary judgment. Donna M. Brewer (Anthony J. Riley also present) for Cable Matters Inc.; Ben Robbins and Natalie Logan, for New England Legal Foundation, amicus curiae, submitted a brief; Duane Galbi, pro se, amicus curiae, submitted a brief (Docket No. SJC-13734) (July 29, 2025).

Click here to read the full text of the opinion.