Town of Seekonk v. Anthony

157 N.E.2d 651, 339 Mass. 49, 1959 Mass. LEXIS 765
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedApril 15, 1959
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 157 N.E.2d 651 (Town of Seekonk v. Anthony) 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
Town of Seekonk v. Anthony, 157 N.E.2d 651, 339 Mass. 49, 1959 Mass. LEXIS 765 (Mass. 1959).

Opinion

Cutter, J.

The town seeks to have Anthony 1 enjoined from carrying on a “ready-mix” concrete business, in alleged violation of the town zoning by-law, on 5.67 acres of land (the Greene lot) in Seekonk situated within an “A Residence” district. The bill, as amended, sets out that “structures existing on . . . [the] land at the date . . . zoning by-laws became effective, have subsequently been altered to an extent which amounts to reconstruction, extension, and structural change” and to “provide for . . . use in a manner substantially different from the use . . . before . . . alteration.” The trial judge made comprehensive findings of fact, which he later adopted as a statutory report of material facts. A final decree was entered dismissing the bill. The town appealed. The evidence is reported. The scope of our review is that stated in Willett v. Willett, 333 Mass. 323, 324, Zelman v. Killion, 337 Mass. 666, 669, and Linse v. O’Meara, 338 Mass. 338, 345. Except as otherwise noted, the facts stated are as found by the trial judge.

The town’s zoning by-law (the principal applicable provisions of which are set out in the margin 2 ) became effective *51 on December 26, 1942. Anthony, at least as early as April, 1942, had been removing from the Greene lot gravel, there processed. He had obtained in 1940 from Greene, its owner, an option to buy the lot, with the privilege of removing sand and gravel in the meantime, and purchased the lot in 1947.

He put up on the lot a building ten feet by twelve feet for telephone, storage, and office purposes. A crusher and a sand and gravel plant were assembled and a platform, mentioned below, was built "on which bags of cement were stored . . . and . . . covered with a canvas." Wooden bins were "erected upon wooden posts, with the base . . . sufficiently high ... to permit trucks to pass underneath and be loaded with . . . ingredients used in making" concrete. From “the processing plant . . . [came] different grades of gravel and sand. A power shovel and loader picked up these . . . and put them in the bins and the trucks . . . underneath were loaded, the material being dumped into the compartments in the truck” through the base of the bins. Bags of cement were opened and placed on the top. Anthony’s testimony shows that this was done from the small platform, about ten feet by twenty-five feet, where the cement bags were stored.

The judge found that “the different ingredients . . . were then mixed,” although this finding seems somewhat in conflict with Anthony’s own testimony which indicated that any mixing consisted of putting the materials into the trucks in horizontal layers in dry form. In any event, the loaded material was “taken away for delivery to the customer in dump trucks." This loading method, with such mixing of the ingredients as occurred, "was in operation for several months prior to the adoption of the zoning [by-]law.”

In late 1941 or early 1942, a “make shift elevator or ‘bucket line’” was built. Driven by a gasoline engine, this *52 arrangement replaced the power shovel in loading. “The plant . . . thus constructed continued in operation . . . and in 1953 the wooden bins . . . used for the . . . gravel and sand, had fallen into disrepair.” The town building inspector on April 7, 1953, issued Anthony a permit “to build or alter a building ... to be occupied as steel bins . . . about 15 by 15 over-all .... [T]he defendant erected steel bins set upon eight concrete posts.” A worn out conveyer belt was replaced. Thereafter cement “was brought to the plant in . . . [airtight] trucks [in bulk instead of in bags] and dumped into a bin which . . . [Anthony] had been permitted to erect, by means of a ‘bucket elevator.’” The gravel and sand were stored in a separate bin. “[A] tube from the cement bin leads into the bin storing the . . . [gravel and sand] and the entire mixture is . . . lowered into a truck” containing a revolving drum and a water tank, “so constructed that it may be activated during the transit of the material and . . . water . . . added to the mixture of stone, gravel, and cement. Sometimes the material [now] leaves the plant . . . dry . . . ; at other times . . . water is added during transit . . . to the customer, and at other times the operation is completed at the point of delivery.” There was testimony that the new operation resulted in a very much larger volume of truck traffic than had previously existed and that much larger trucks were used.

“After 1942 a small building was erected where the cement was dumped for transmission by the elevators to the bin to prevent dust from scattering” and two other small buildings were built. The testimony shows that one of these was for heating the mixture, which Anthony stated he “couldn’t handle . . . before in the wintertime.” These small buildings, the judge found, were “of insignificant size.”

Anthony’s business “has increased in volume but is now concentrated in a smaller area ... in closer proximity to the mechanical plant.” Electricity instead of a gas engine now operates the elevator bucket line. There was testimony that facilities for weighing the cement have been added.

*53 To one of the steel “bins replacing the . . . wooden bins . . . there is attached an elevator that carries the bulk cement into the bin. From the foundation to the top of the . . . bins is 34 feet 1 inch.” There is a belt “17 feet 11| inches above the top of the bin, and above this belt there is an electric motor . . . braced to stop vibration, ... 4 feet 8 inches above the top of the belt. The total height from . . . ground level ... is 56 feet, 8 inches.”

The judge, in what we interpret to be ultimate findings based upon the Subsidiary findings just outlined, concluded so far as here material (a) “that the business as presently conducted is the same as that . . . prior to . . . the zoning [by-]law, and that while it has . . . greater volume, it has not been extended by uses differing substantially” from its pre-zoning operation; “modern mechanism made necessary by the increased volume . . . facilitates . . . the business but does not change its . . . original character”; (b) that, because of the hazy recollection of witnesses, he could not find the dimensions of the worn out wooden bins; (c) that the steel bins (apart from motor braces and elevators) did not exceed the 35 foot limit imposed by the zoning by-law and that the braces, belt, and elevator “are accessories without which the bins would be without practical value”; (d) that the post-1942 small buildings are buildings customarily on land used in tins type of business; and (e) “that there has been no change of use, . . . alteration of . . . structures for any purpose . . . substantially different from its [prior] use ... or for its use to a substantially greater extent than that existing at the time of the zoning by-law.”

The testimony, including that of Anthony, described the changes from pre-zoning by-law days in somewhat greater detail than did the trial judge. Examination of the testimony confirms various inferences which we draw from the judge’s subsidiary findings and which differ from the conclusions reached by the judge upon the same basic facts.

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Bluebook (online)
157 N.E.2d 651, 339 Mass. 49, 1959 Mass. LEXIS 765, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/town-of-seekonk-v-anthony-mass-1959.