There Once Was A Barn In Nantucket

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court vacated a judgment and remanded for further proceedings. 

This appeal arises out of a dispute between the owner of a historic property in Nantucket and his neighbors over whether the owner may remove an ancillary structure, a barn, from the premises. Over the course of the administrative proceedings and ensuing litigation, relevant officials in Nantucket have taken inconsistent positions concerning the historical significance of the barn. Ultimately, a Superior Court judge held a bench trial on three consolidated complaints for judicial review. The judge found, first, that the neighbors had standing to oppose removal of the barn and, second, that the first decision of the Nantucket historic district commission (commission), denying the owner’s application to remove the barn, must stand. On the owner’s appeal, we determine that the judge did not err in finding that the neighbors have standing; however, we vacate the judgment and remand with respect to the commission’s first decision.

The property

The Seth Ray house on North Liberty Street, built in the mid-1700s, is one of the most historic structures in one of the most historic districts of old Nantucket. Seth Ray’s cooper shop, where barrels were made to supply Nantucket’s whale oil trade, stands on the adjacent parcel. Two structures of lesser pedigree share the same parcel with the Seth Ray house: the barn, completed in or around 1972, stands between the house and the cooper shop, and an antique shop built in the 1930s is located on the other side of the house. The barn and the antique shop were built to match their surroundings in style and materials. Tour guides walking visitors down North Liberty Street point to the Seth Ray house, the cooper shop, and the barn (despite its relatively recent construction) as representative of life in Nantucket at the turn of the Nineteenth Century.

A barn not being a necessity of life in the Twenty-first Century, even in old Nantucket, the owner of the Seth Ray structures sought to remove the barn from its present location and relocate it to elsewhere on the island. As the first step toward realizing this goal, the owner applied to the commission for permission.

Round one

The commission voted three to two to deny the owner’s request to remove the barn.

The owner appealed the decision

By a vote of four to one, the board issued its first decision, remanding the matter to the commission for a further hearing to consider the “foregoing issues, questions, and comments.”

On remand

On remand from the board, the commission, with different participating membership, took an entirely different view of the barn and its relationship to its surroundings. In its second decision, the commission emphasized that the space occupied by the barn had lain vacant for forty to seventy years before the barn was built, providing the neighbors with an unobstructed view of Lily Pond, and that “[a]nother historic structure” had been moved down the street to “open up Lily Pond vistas as an example of historical context for views of Lily Pond in this immediate area.”

Leaving no one content

Both the owner and the neighbors filed new complaints in the Superior Court seeking judicial review of second board decision.

In Superior Court

The three complaints for judicial review were consolidated for trial in the Superior Court. In her thorough written findings, rulings, and order for judgment issued after a five day bench trial, the judge found as a threshold matter that the neighbors had standing to challenge the commission’s issuance of the certificate. On the merits, the judge determined that the commission’s denial of the certificate in its first decision was not arbitrary and capricious and was based on substantial evidence, and that the board’s ruling in its first decision to vacate the first commission decision was improper.

Here

…the judgment is vacated. A new judgment shall enter affirming the second board decision to the extent that it set aside the certificate and remanded the owner’s application to the commission. The commission shall consider any application in accordance with the act and consistent with this opinion.

(Mike Frisch)