In 1985, the prior owners of 250 acres of farmland in Sheffield sold the Commonwealth an agricultural preservation restriction (APR) for $291,000. The APR form reserved to the landowner a right to build dwelling units, but made that right subject to the Commissioner of Food and Agriculture's approval. The prior owners later sold the restricted farmland, along with an adjacent unrestricted parcel containing a house and two barns, to the Bennetts.
The Bennetts sought approval to build a new farmhouse on a hilltop within the restricted parcel. The proposed site required a 3,000-foot driveway. The commissioner concluded that the driveway would cause erosion, remove about two acres of prime farmland from production, and transform the property from a farm into an estate by increasing its market value. After the Bennetts rejected five alternative sites, the commissioner denied approval for the hilltop location.
The Bennetts sought declaratory relief. The Superior Court granted summary judgment to the commissioner, ruling that the APR statute did not give the Bennetts an unrestricted right to build wherever they wished and that the commissioner's regulation governing residential construction on APR land was valid. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, but did so on the separate ground that the deed itself validly gave the commissioner approval authority over dwelling locations.
Issue #1
Whether the deed granting the agricultural preservation restriction validly allowed the commissioner to control the location of a landowner's proposed family dwelling.
Holding
Yes. The deed's express requirement of commissioner approval for dwelling construction was enforceable against the Bennetts.
Reasoning
The instrument granting the APR expressly reserved the landowner's right to construct dwelling units only "subject . . . to the approval of the commissioner." Thus, whatever ambiguity might exist in the statutory definition of an APR, the original parties plainly agreed that the commissioner could approve or disapprove the location of a dwelling on the restricted land.
The Bennetts purchased with notice of that recorded restriction. Their challenge was not that the commissioner abused discretion in denying the selected hilltop site; rather, they argued that he could not lawfully possess approval authority at all. The Court held that the express bargain in the deed supplied that authority.
The restriction reasonably advanced the public purpose of the APR program: keeping the land available for future agricultural use. The commissioner had paid public funds for the restriction, and controlling a dwelling's location could prevent loss of productive farmland and other effects inconsistent with agricultural preservation. Enforcing the agreed approval provision therefore was both reasonable and consistent with public policy.
Issue #2
Whether the lack of privity between the commissioner and the Bennetts, and the absence of land owned by the commissioner that benefited from the restriction, barred enforcement of the deed provision.
Holding
No. Traditional common-law limits on enforcing easements in gross did not bar this publicly beneficial restriction.
Reasoning
The Bennetts relied on common-law rules under which a restrictive covenant ordinarily required privity and had to benefit identifiable land held by the party seeking enforcement. The commissioner neither owned benefited land nor stood in ordinary privity with the Bennetts.
But the Legislature had expressly declared in G. L. c. 184, § 32 that an APR is not unenforceable merely because of a lack of privity or a lack of benefit to particular land. That enactment reflected a public policy favoring the enforceability of preservation restrictions held for public purposes.
Even assuming that the commissioner's site-approval power went beyond the precise statutory definition of an APR in § 31, no rule prohibited the commissioner from accepting that additional benefit. The Department, through the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, had authority to accept grants or gifts that aided its public duties. Where a clearly identified public beneficiary holds a reasonable restriction that reinforces a legislatively declared conservation purpose, the old common-law prohibition on easements in gross has no continuing force.
Issue #3
Whether G. L. c. 184, § 31 independently authorized the commissioner to limit the site of a family dwelling, and whether the commissioner's regulation independently supplied that authority.
Holding
The Court did not decide those questions because the deed provision itself resolved the case.
Reasoning
Section 31 permits an APR to limit construction except for agricultural buildings and dwellings used for the landowner's family living, while also permitting limits on other acts or uses detrimental to agricultural retention. The parties offered competing readings of whether the latter authority allowed site-specific control over an otherwise permitted family dwelling.
The Court recognized that the Bennetts' statutory argument was not frivolous, particularly because a driveway ordinarily could be viewed as an ancillary use necessary to reach an authorized dwelling. Nevertheless, it found no need to resolve the statutory ambiguity or pass on the independent validity of the regulation. The recorded deed expressly gave the commissioner the approval power at issue, and that enforceable contractual servitude was sufficient to affirm the judgment.