## Facts

- A developer purchased Commercial Wharf in Boston, rehabilitated a central granite warehouse, and later decided to convert the building to condominium units.
- To comply with zoning floor-area requirements, the developer placed not only the building but also a portion of the wharf’s parking/driveway area into the condominium’s common area ownership.
- Before recording the condominium master deed, the developer recorded a declaration of covenants and easements reserving to itself (and successors) rights over the condominium’s parking/driveway area, including managing parking operations, designating spaces/traffic patterns, and charging/collecting parking fees.
- The master deed conveyed fee title to the parking/driveway area to the unit owners (through the association), expressly subject to the recorded reservation in favor of the developer.
- The developer later transferred its reserved parking rights and remaining wharf interests to successor entities.
- The condominium association claimed the successors asserted expansive control over parking configuration and management and contended the reservation was invalid under the Massachusetts condominium statute, G.L. c. 183A.

## Issues

1. Whether a developer may validly reserve, by recorded condominium instruments, an easement-like right to control and collect fees for parking on condominium common area without violating G.L. c. 183A.
2. If such a reservation is valid, whether the successors’ actions exceeded the permissible scope of the reserved rights by materially increasing the burden on the condominium’s common area.

## Decision

- The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the Land Court’s core ruling that the recorded reservation of parking management and fee-collection rights was valid and enforceable.
- The court treated the reserved rights as a nonpossessory, easement-like interest burdening the common area rather than a transfer of exclusive possession.
- The court also affirmed limitations on the defendants’ conduct where their exercise of the reserved rights exceeded the scope contemplated by the recorded instruments and overburdened the servient estate.
- The case was resolved by upholding the reservation while requiring its use to remain within its original, recorded boundaries.

## Legal Principles

- Condominium common areas may be burdened by properly created and recorded nonpossessory interests (e.g., easements/servitudes) in favor of a developer or successors unless expressly prohibited by G.L. c. 183A or public policy.
- Fee ownership by unit owners in common areas can coexist with easement-like rights held by others; G.L. c. 183A does not, by implication, eliminate traditional real-property servitudes.
- Recorded condominium instruments define the bundle of rights acquired by unit purchasers; purchasers take title subject to disclosed, recorded servitudes.
- An easement holder may not materially enlarge or change the use so as to overburden the servient estate beyond what was contemplated at creation; courts may enforce limits to preserve the original allocation of rights among affected parcels.

## Conclusion

The court held that a developer’s recorded reservation of parking control and fee-collection rights over condominium common area can be valid under Massachusetts condominium law, but the reservation functions like an easement and must be exercised within the scope set by the recorded instruments, without overburdening the condominium’s property rights.


Commercial Wharf E. Condo. Ass’n v. Waterfront Parking Corp., 407 Mass. 123 (1990)