SENATE DOCKET, NO. 808        FILED ON: 1/13/2009

SENATE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 789

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the Year Two Thousand Nine

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An Act relative to land use regulations.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

SECTION 1. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary no city or town of the Commonwealth shall enact, alter, or impose unfair and excessive land use regulations on individual landowners without compensation or other forms of relief.  

Land use regulations shall include, zoning by-law changes that limit the use or potential uses of a piece of property, decisions by local boards and departments that limit the use or potential uses of property or any other local action that restricts the use of private property or by through its imposition reduces the fair market value of the piece of property.

Any landowner against whose property a land use regulation will affect shall be compensated for the loss of use, or potential uses as well as receive monetary compensation for the reduction in the fair market value of said property.