## Facts

- KCI Management, Inc. owned a 7.22-acre parcel in Hyde Park, Boston, in a single-family residential district where single-family homes were permitted as of right.
- Part of the parcel fell within Boston’s Greenbelt Protection Overlay District (GPOD) along Turtle Pond Parkway; under the zoning code, that placement subjected the entire parcel to GPOD review.
- KCI applied for building permits to construct 23 single-family homes, meeting dimensional and lot-size requirements of the underlying district.
- The inspectional services department denied permits because GPOD-required approvals had not been obtained.
- KCI appealed the denial and separately sought a conditional use permit from the Board of Appeal of Boston.
- After a hearing, the board denied both requests, stating only that KCI had not shown that all conditional-use requirements were met, without identifying specific deficiencies or workable conditions.
- KCI brought a Superior Court action under the Boston Zoning Enabling Act challenging both the GPOD regulation (Article 29, § 29-6) and the board’s denial.
- The Superior Court granted summary judgment for KCI, declaring § 29-6 invalid and annulling the board’s decision; the board appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether KCI’s action was timely under the Boston Zoning Enabling Act when the overlay district predated KCI’s purchase, but the challenge followed an adverse permitting decision.
2. Whether the GPOD scheme is valid under the Enabling Act where it requires conditional use approval (with site plan review criteria) for uses otherwise permitted as of right in the underlying district.
3. Whether the board exceeded its authority by denying an otherwise as-of-right residential proposal without stating specific, reasonable terms and conditions under which the project could proceed.

## Decision

- The Appeals Court held KCI’s challenge timely because it was an as-applied challenge filed within the statutory period after the board’s decision.
- The court upheld the validity of the GPOD overlay scheme, concluding it may impose additional conditions through site plan review without unlawfully reclassifying underlying as-of-right uses.
- The court annulled the board’s denial as unlawful as applied, because the board failed to set out reasonable conditions and instead effectively prohibited a permitted use.
- The judgment was modified to sustain the overlay’s validity while providing relief from the board’s decision.

## Legal Principles

- A purchaser may timely challenge preexisting zoning regulations as applied by appealing an adverse permitting decision within the statutory limitations period.
- An overlay district may supplement underlying zoning by imposing additional, reviewable conditions on development to protect designated environmental or scenic resources without violating statutory uniformity requirements.
- A zoning board administering a conditional-use process must apply stated criteria and articulate specific findings; it may not deny an otherwise permitted use by issuing an unparticularized refusal instead of reasonable, proposal-specific conditions.
- Conditional-use authority in an overlay context is regulatory (conditioning a permitted use), not prohibitory (eliminating an underlying as-of-right use).

## Conclusion

The Appeals Court ruled that Boston’s greenbelt overlay district may require conditional-use review for projects otherwise allowed in the underlying district, but the board acted unlawfully by denying KCI’s compliant single-family proposal without specifying unmet criteria or imposing reasonable conditions, thereby turning an as-of-right use into a prohibition.


KCI Mgmt., Inc. v. Bd. of Appeal of Bos., 54 Mass. App. Ct. 254, 764 N.E.2d 377 (2002)