Notes on Island Road Soccer 2012-03-05The Northampton Soccer Club has used the fields at the Oxbow Marina on Island Road for a number of years, likely dating back to the 1980s. At some point during the 1990s the Western
United Soccer Club, a regional soccer association, began to use the fields. At a later time the Oxbow Marina staff began maintaining the fields and added a large area of new fields.
Based on the increased field area and changes in the financial relationship between the marina and the soccer clubs, the Building Commissioner determined that the activity required
a special permit from the Planning Board.
Mathias Duda, owner of the property applied for a special permit in 2007. The special permit was set to expire in 2010. The soccer club reapplied in 2011 and was granted a permit that
was to expire in at the end of the 2011 spring season. Attorney Mark Tanner, acting for the soccer club, informed me that the 2007 permit was extended by the Economic Recovery Act of
2008 and did not, in fact, expire until June 30, 2012. I agreed and soccer continued under the terms of the 2007 permit through the end of the fall 2011 season.
The Northampton Soccer Club has revised their articles of amendment to include specific language regarding their educational activities. The new articles seem to meet the criteria of
MGL 40A sec 3 for exemptions from local zoning ordinances for educational use by a nonprofit corporation.
The soccer club has submitted a zoning permit application proposing “Educational use of the (Oxbow Marina) soccer fields for use by the Northampton Soccer Club, Inc. including the use
of such fields for regularly scheduled soccer matches, trainings, tournaments, and those uses and all accessory uses thereto including those uses listed in the applicant’s articles
of incorporation.”
The current zoning permit application proposes use of three areas on the Oxbow Marina property. One area located on the north side of the entrance road was part of the original soccer
use (46-021, ~5 acres of a 9.5 acre parcel). The other two areas on the south side of the entrance road are more recent expansion (53-002, ~9 acres of an 18 acre parcel).
The 2007 permit describes the northern area as “Northampton Soccer Club field areas” and the southern areas as “Western United Soccer field areas”.
No zoning ordinance or by-law shall regulate or restrict….. the use of land or structures…..by a nonprofit educational corporation; provided, however, that such land or structures may
be subject to reasonable regulations concerning the bulk and height of structures and determining yard sizes, lot area, setbacks,
open space, parking and building coverage requirements
350-8.1 Table of Off-Street Parking Regulations:
Any permitted use not covered by this schedule: Closest use determined by Building Commissioner
Temporary and seasonal uses in unheated outdoor space in any business or industrial district: none required
Cummington School vs Assessors (373 Mass 597):
CSA must establish that it makes a contribution to education and that that is its dominant activity. The board is entitled to consider that CSA confers no certificates for completion
of courses of study, although the corporate purposes recite the power to do so. In addition, the board is entitled to consider that little academic credit is given to the work of participants.
However, these negative circumstances do not dispose of the underlying question
CSA's efforts to show that the processes in which it engages are beneficial to persons who are already educators and that comparable activities are carried on elsewhere for students
in established educational institutions. The board, in its discretion, may wish to hear further evidence concerning whether nontraditional, unstructured activities of the character
carried on by CSA are nevertheless educational.
Regis College vs Weston 18 LCR 8
Kurz, 341 Mass. at 113 (stating that “the teaching of the various types of dances advertised by the plaintiff, with the possible exception of the classical ballet, can hardly be considered
educational use in the ordinary sense.”).
Julia Ruth House, Inc. v. Board of Appeals of Westwood, 8 LCR 451 , 453 (2000) (Misc. Case No. 262911) (Kilborn, J.) (an adult day care center with “incidental educational components”
is not educational under the purview of the Dover Amendment).
However, despite the various facilities that have been given zoning exemptions under the Dover Amendment, an “educational purpose” is not without limits. See e.g., Whitinsville Retirement
Society, 394 Mass. at 761 (finding that a nursing home focused on crafts, entertainment, and stimulus is not educational); Kurz, 341 Mass. at 113 (stating that “the teaching of the
various types of dances advertised by the plaintiff, with the possible exception of the classical ballet, can hardly be considered educational use in the ordinary sense.”). [Note 19]
In order for a facility to be considered an educational use in context of the Dover Amendment, it does not need to fulfill traditional educational goals; it must, however, provide more
than “[m]erely an ‘element of education’ . . . .’” Whitinsville Retirement Society, 394 Mass. at 760-61.