A Massachusetts Land Court judge has ruled in favor of the developer of a child care center nearing completion at 1688 Central Ave., dismissing claims by a group of abutters that the building permit for the project was improperly issued back in the fall of 2023.
Judge Kevin Smith on Christmas Eve allowed a request for summary judgment by Needham Enterprises, possibly bringing an end to the nearly four-year saga of the facility that was first proposed in early 2021.
The abutters have a month to file an appeal of the summary judgment order.
Needham Enterprises, owned by former Select Board member Matt Borrelli, is nearing completion of the 10,000-square-foot building that it intends to lease to the Needham Children’s Center. The NCC would transfer its longstanding child care operation from the First Baptist Church on Great Plain Avenue to the new location.
The project has been through a nine-month Planning Board process, a trial at Land Court, an appeal to the Zoning Board of Appeals and the current case in Land Court as a group of abutters continue to pursue their argument that the site plan review process the project went through at the local level should have been given full consideration.
The Christmas Eve ruling by Judge Smith was based on the same legal logic that prevailed at all previous stops along the municipal and judicial regulatory line — the project has protection under a 1950 state law, the Dover Amendment, exempting it from the level of review that the Planning Board conducted and that the abutters wish to apply.
After he prevailed in his case at Land Court and the Planning Board declined to file an appeal, Borrelli applied for and received a building permit for the project Sept. 19, 2023. He immediately broke ground despite the fact there were appeals pending on the Land Court case that could have brought him back to court.
The abutters appealed the building permit granted by the town, but the Zoning Board of Appeals upheld it. The abutters then filed their appeal of the ZBA ruling in Land Court.
The abutters argued that the project violates town bylaws by having two nonresidential buildings — a barn and the new child care building — on the same lot, which is in an area zoned for single-residence use. They also argued that the project violated a local requirement that all institutional uses require a “landscaped transition area” as a screen.
In his ruling, Judge Smith rejected both arguments. In the matter of the barn, his ruling indicated he felt that it was allowable, writing “even without the protections of the Dover Amendment, the use of the barn as part of the childcare facility is permissible under the Bylaw.”
The NCC hopes to take occupancy by summer.
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