[Massplanners] [EXTERNAL] Registering Site Plan Review and Special Permit at Registry of Deeds?

Mon Aug 19 10:45:42 EDT 2024

Hi, Star:

As Mike says, special permit recording is required under the Zoning Act. Site plan review, being a creature of home rule authority and absent from any mention in the Zoning Act, is pretty much what you make it. Best way to ensure recordation is to require it in the local zoning bylaw section on site plan review. Next best would be to condition it in the site plan decision itself. In either case, the language cited below (“is recorded in the registry of deeds for the county and district in which the land is located and indexed in the grantor index under the name of the owner of record or is recorded and noted on the owner's certificate of title”) could be used as a model.

Jeff Lacy

Rural Planning Associates

896 Graves Road

Conway, MA 01341

ruralplanningassociates at crocker.com

(413) 230-9693

From: MassPlanners <massplanners-bounces at masscptc.org> On Behalf Of Michael McCarthy via MassPlanners
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2024 8:54 AM
To: Star Atkeson <Star.Atkeson at townofcharlemont.org>; massplanners at masscptc.org
Subject: Re: [Massplanners] [EXTERNAL] Registering Site Plan Review and Special Permit at Registry of Deeds?

Hi Star,

MGL 40A Section 11 covers the recording of special permits at the registry:

A special permit, or any extension, modification or renewal thereof, shall not take effect until a copy of the decision bearing the certification of the city or town clerk that 20 days have elapsed after the decision has been filed in the office of the city or town clerk and either that no appeal has been filed or the appeal has been filed within such time, or if it is a special permit which has been approved by reason of the failure of the permit granting authority or special permit granting authority to act thereon within the time prescribed, a copy of the application for the special permit-accompanied by the certification of the city or town clerk stating the fact that the permit granting authority or special permit granting authority failed to act within the time prescribed, and whether or not an appeal has been filed within that time, and that the grant of the application resulting from the failure to act has become final, is recorded in the registry of deeds for the county and district in which the land is located and indexed in the grantor index under the name of the owner of record or is recorded and noted on the owner's certificate of title. The person exercising rights under a duly appealed special permit does so at risk that a court will reverse the permit and that any construction performed under the permit may be ordered undone. This section shall in no event terminate or shorten the tolling, during the pendency of any appeals, of the 6 month periods provided under the second paragraph of section 6. The fee for recording or registering shall be paid by the owner or applicant.

When one is required, our building commissioner will not issue a permit unless an applicant provides a copy of a registry-stamped decision with a certificate of no appeal from our clerk, so that’s one way to enforce the recording. 

Like you, we used to have people record site plan review decisions but found there was no ordinance requirement and stopped suggesting it. To me, this makes sense because special permit approvals usually contain information that would be relevant in the future and should be preserved at the registry, such as the number of allowed parking spaces on a site or when a nonconformity is determined to be less determinantal,  but site plan review conditions are typically like “revise the plans to show a dumpster enclosure prior to the issuance of a building permit” and other things that are settled before a project gets going.

Mike McCarthy

Asst. City Planner 

New Bedford 

From: MassPlanners <massplanners-bounces at masscptc.org <mailto:massplanners-bounces at masscptc.org> > On Behalf Of Star Atkeson via MassPlanners
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2024 4:13 PM
To: massplanners at masscptc.org <mailto:massplanners at masscptc.org> 
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [Massplanners] Registering Site Plan Review and Special Permit at Registry of Deeds?

Dear Planners, We have always stamped the bottom of our Special Permits with "No permit is active until filed at the registry of deeds with certificate of no appeal. " We are amending a business's Site Plan review, and we had not written on the

Dear Planners,

We have always stamped the bottom of our Special Permits with "No permit is active until filed at the registry of deeds with certificate of no appeal."
We are amending a business's Site Plan review, and we had not written on the original that it must be registered at the registry of deeds, back in 2015- and are noticing that a few old Site Plan Reviews are missing this. In our zooming bylaws and PB Rules and Regs, it does not say a Special Permit or Site Plan review must be registered at the registry of deeds. It only shows up in our Site Plan review flow chart which was most likely copied from another town, and assumed a building permit was needed.

It has been hard to enforce businesses to register at the registry of deeds.

Are Site Plan Reviews or Special permits only to be registered at the registry of deeds if they are seeking a building permit?
We have a Site Plan review coming up for a diner, and the applicant is a renter. There won't be a building permit. In the past we would have asked him to register at the registry. Is this unnecessary?

Thank you!
Star Atkeson 
Secretary to Boards, Charlemont

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