Home/Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court/Shapiro v. City of Cambridge

Shapiro v. City of Cambridge

166 N.E.2d 208, 340 Mass. 652, 1960 Mass. LEXIS 744
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedApril 6, 1960
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 166 N.E.2d 208 (Shapiro v. City of Cambridge) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Shapiro v. City of Cambridge, 166 N.E.2d 208, 340 Mass. 652, 1960 Mass. LEXIS 744 (Mass. 1960).

Opinion

Whittemore, J.

An amendment to the Cambridge zoning ordinance adopted April 21, 1958, was held valid by the decision of the judge in the Land Court on June 11, 1959, on *653 a petition under G. L. c. 240, § 14A, and c. 185, § 1 (j½) both inserted by St. 1934, c. 263. The petitioners, owners of land on the southerly side of Pemberton Street, which by the amendment, with other adjacent land, was reclassified from an Industry B district, heavy industry, to an Industry A district, light industry, claimed exceptions to the findings and rulings of the decision and to the failure to rule, inter alla, in substance, that the amendment was invalid as spot zoning and violative of the requirements of uniform classification of like areas. The bill of exceptions includes the decision and “all the evidence” with exhibits.

The zoning ordinance was adopted in December, 1943, and the judge found that the districts are shown on the zoning map of December, 1943. The rezoned area is adjacent on the north to the tracks of the Fitchburg division of the Boston and Maine Railroad. These tracks enter Cambridge from the east at Porter Square and run westerly for about two miles to the Belmont line. With four exceptions all the land en both sides of the tracks was in 1943 zoned Industry B. At Porter Square, on either side of Massachusetts Avenue, for a total length of about 1,200 feet along the tracks, the zone was Business B. Where the tracks cross Alewife Brook Parkway a strip which appears to scale 100 feet on the west side of the parkway was Residence A-2. At the westerly city line, the tracks run through the north corner of a Residence B district for about 450 feet. Approximately 2,200 feet westerly of Massachusetts Avenue, a strip on the north of the tracks about 550 feet long and 130 feet wide, which the evidence showed is a playground, was zoned Residence C-l. This playground parcel is bounded on the north by Pemberton Street and on the west by the parcel rezoned in April, 1958. The evidence showed that this playground area was an extension across Pemberton Street of the playground use of Rindge field and is occupied by a “tennis court and basketball court, hard court surface.” The rezoned parcel is just about midway in a segment of the extensive Industry B district. This segment, much narrower in its eastward aspect, extends without a break, except for *654 the playground, for about a mile along both sides of the tracks from a point near Massachusetts Avenue to Alewife Brook Parkway. The ■ rezoned parcel is a rectangle about 1,000 feet in length and 130 feet deep between the center lines of Sherman Street and of Yerxa Road extended. Most of the land north of this segment of the Industry B zonq and south of a narrow Business A zone on Massachusetts Avenue is in a Residence C-l zone; some of it is in a small Residence B zone and some is in a small Business A zone on Rindge Avenue. The locus and some aspects of nearby areas are shown on the accompanying sketch. 1 There are in the locus structures used by an auto body business and a carpet cleaning business, nine houses, and the site of a former plant of Metropolitan Coal Company.

Industry A districts in 1943 were few and relatively small in size, and none was adjacent to the railroad tracks. The zoning map shows an A zone at Alewife Brook Parkway and Concord Avenue, and another at the northern side of the Industry B district where the industrial zone abutted a Residence C-l zone. The permitted uses in an Industry A zone are: Any use or accessory use which is permitted in the Business B district; dyeing and cleaning establishment; food products manufacture; laundry; milk distributing station; machine shop; any other light manufacturing use similar in character to the foregoing uses and not otherwise prohibited. The permitted uses in an Industry B district include the uses permitted in an Industry A district, other specified uses including “Building materials storage yard/’ and manufacturing uses generally but with the exclusion of certain named uses and those which are “obnoxious or offensive by reason of the emission of smoke, dust, gas, noise or odor.”

The petitioners by deed of December 12, 1957, took title to 42,487 square feet of land about in the middle of the subject area. On this parcel Metropolitan Coal Company had for many years maintained a depot with about eighteen *656 cement storage pockets, some wooden sheds and an office building. The parcel has a spur track for seven cars. Prior to December 12, 1957, there was a fire in the pockets. After purchasing the land the petitioners demolished the pockets. The petitioners are real estate developers and officers and stockholders of Hub Building Wrecking Company. The judge found that “[Yjhere had been some thought that the petitioners might move the Hub Building Wrecking Company yard and establish a so called 'junk yard’ at the premises.” The amendment followed a petition on November 25, 1957, asking for the change which the amendment later enacted. The transcript of the planning board hearing on this petition, referred to it by the city council, shows that several who spoke in favor of the change wished to prevent the coming to the area of a building wrecking business and a junk yard. The conclusion was warranted that a purpose of those asking the change had been to prevent this. The petitioners denied an intent to establish such businesses on the site.

*655

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Bluebook (online)
166 N.E.2d 208, 340 Mass. 652, 1960 Mass. LEXIS 744, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/shapiro-v-city-of-cambridge-mass-1960.