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ZBA continues dispute over frontage at 0 Colgate Road (lot 14); parties to supply title and plan evidence
Summary
An appeal over whether Lot 14 (0 Colgate Road) has the frontage required by the zoning bylaw was continued after parties disputed whether historical plans, a 1975 temporary easement and a 1974 covenant supply frontage along a private way. The board asked for additional documentation and for the Building Department to review updated plans.
The Needham Zoning Board of Appeals continued a dispute over whether a vacant parcel identified as Lot 14 (0 Colgate Road) meets the zoning bylaw’s frontage requirement. The question before the board is whether the lot fronts on a way recognized by the zoning bylaw (public way, private way shown on a plan approved under subdivision control law, or a way in existence when the subdivision control law was adopted) or whether an intervening easement or covenant supplies the frontage needed for a building permit.
Counsel for the petitioner (Patricia Connolly) argued the lot does have frontage based on historic plans and approvals dating to 1954 and a subsequent plan and recorded instruments from the 1970s. The petitioner presented a title report and an ANR/plan packet showing the lot and a recorded 1975 temporary easement and a 1976 order of taking for a 30‑foot portion of the fronting area that became town property. Counsel pointed the board to a 1974 covenant recorded with the plan that the petitioner says operates to protect access.
Opposing neighbors and the owners of the adjacent private drive (labeled Lot A2 / Colgate private way on historical plans) said the covenant language did not create perpetual frontage rights for Lot 14 and, in any event, they said statutory limitations may have expired that restriction. An abutter’s counsel raised Mass. Gen. Laws Chapter 184, Section 23 (statutory expiration of restrictions after 30 years) as relevant to a recorded covenant the petition asserts gives lot owners access rights; counsel said the recorded restriction would have expired by operation of that statute in 2005.
Several neighbors testified about long periods in which the private drive (Lot A2) functioned as the abutters’ driveway, mailbox location and snow‑plow route rather than as a public or recorded private way. The board heard factual disagreements over whether the 1954 plan, the 1974 covenant and the 1975 temporary easement together created frontage rights for Lot 14 under the zoning bylaw. Because the record requires more documentary and legal development, the board continued the item and asked both sides to submit additional materials, including definitive stamped plot plans, the documents the parties rely on from the title search, and any legal briefing the parties wish to provide. The ZBA scheduled the matter for further hearing on February 27.
