April 5 - Town of Falmouth

one that sets the Zoning Bylaw, not the Zoning Board of Appeals. That’s
what the judge said. I know that’s got you out of your seat, Andy, that
Town Meeting trumps the Zoning Board of Appeals. And I’m sure that has
a lot of people in outrage.
The second finding that the Court made was that the owner of
the property failed to produce either a building permit, showing the cottage
was a validly constructed residence, or a certificate of occupancy showing
that the cottage use was converted to a dwelling, which would trigger
either the six or ten year statute of limitations period prescribed in 40A,
Section 7.
The majority of properties in the 200 or so property list Mr.
McNamara went over are probably already protected. Can you imagine
going 50 years and not putting a roof on a building? I think you’re going to
have some roofing issues for discussion later on tonight, or tomorrow
night. Roofs don’t last that long; you need a building permit to get a roof.
And building permits protect these types of buildings. That was a critical
finding that the Land Court made in this case which distinguishes the facts
in our neighborhood from the facts in every other neighborhood. Every
one of these is different and there needs to be a factual determination.
If I could have the next slide. The owner was attempting to
condominiumize it, because one of the things that happens when you turn
these into dwellings like this, there’s a difference between principal uses
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