Appeals Court Found Massachusetts Board of Selectmen Worked with Objectors to Bar Application for Certificate of Appropriateness for Multifamily Project Without Basis The Court of Appeals of Massachusetts ruled that various abutters to a multifamily property whose owner sought to increase the number of structures on an existing property in an existing multifamily housing district was denied an application for a certificate of appropriateness for the project in an unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious fashion, where the abutters worked the neighborhood historic preservation district to ban the project without factual basis. Meehan v. Somer-ville Historic Preservation Commission, 2020 WL 2071040 (Table), No. 19-P-211 (Mass. App. Ct. Apr. 30, 2020). Gerald Meehan acquired title to a 25,000 square foot parcel on Aldersey Street in Somerville in 1999. The property with a three-unit residential structure is the largest in the multifamily residential building neighborhood. In 2001, he proposed a nine-unit project on the site, which failed because of significant community and neighborhood opposition. In the spring of 2002, he proposed a 30-unit housing development, which also met with neighborhood opposition.
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