A state judge has ruled that Regis College can't skirt local zoning laws in building a 362-unit retirement village in Weston. The Catholic school had argued that the development was covered by a state law giving religious and nonprofit institutions the right to build. Jonathan Saltzman reported in Saturday's Boston Globe:
After more than four years of litigation and fierce town-gown tensions, Land Court Judge Alexander H. Sands III ruled that the development was primarily a housing program, not an educational one, even though elderly residents would take college courses. As such, he said, the 750,000-square-foot project was not entitled to bypass zoning regulations under the state law known as the Dover Amendment.
CommonWealth magazine's Ray Hainer reported on the dispute in 2007, when local officials anticipated the Land Court ruling:
“The general belief is that wrapping a commercial undertaking in the guise of an educational endeavor by claiming there will be classes offered to residents and a learning experience for some of the students is misrepresenting the actual undertaking,” says Selectman Harrity, a commercial real estate broker who teaches real estate and finance courses at Babson College in Wellesley. “It would be like Babson College saying, ‘We’re going to build a Wal-Mart outside because we have marketing and managing courses, and it’ll be an educational undertaking since we’ll offer management classes to the employees.’”