KBP LAW

Zoning and Permitting

This land is your Land – this Land is my Land….! 

Let's speak about land use for a moment. Land use - just like the title of it says - is how one can legally use your property.  You may have purchased a 100 Acre Farm in what is still a rural area, or you may have purchased a home on a 3,000 square foot lot in a residential area that abuts a commercial area. In order to know what you can do with either of those properties you have to research and know the Zoning District that the land is in and what the Zoning Bylaws in the zoning district allow.

These are very technical requirements that the town puts forth in order for you to use your property and perhaps more importantly what it prohibits you from doing with your property. These regulations are the reason why if property is located in a residential district your neighbor cannot simply start a gas station, a rental car company or a Landscape Depot without the permission of the town.  So the Zoning by-laws and real estate use restrictions protects you in certain manners as well we handle all aspects of land use to make sure that the land you have purchased or the land that you're looking to purchase is a good candidate OR for what you wish to do as far as land use in the future.

One of the easiest examples is what we refer to as an in-law apartment where you are prohibited from creating a two-family home out of your single family home due to zoning regulations, however, you would like to essentially create a self-sustaining separate for a relative or family member. In order to do so you need the permission of the municipality in which you live in because you're in a single family residential district. You would seek the zoning board approval for an Accessory Dwelling Unit aka “in-law apartment”. This is a very simple example we at the Law Offices of Kenneth B. Phillips also handle other matters with large commercial projects. For example, land use matters in which the lot lines are too small and the dimensional requirements are not adequate – or Issues in which Wetlands come into play. So if you want to know exactly what you can do with your property we'd love to help you navigate that land use variance and land use transaction.