City of Newton
to challenge Superior Court ruling
on 300 Hammond Pond Parkway

Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller has announced that the City will bring an action in the Massachusetts Land Court in response to a July ruling by Middlesex Superior Court Judge Camille Sarrouf, Jr., that invalidated a land-use restriction held by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on the 300 Hammond Pond Parkway property Boston College purchased from the Congregation Mishkan Tefila in 2016.

The judge’s ruling supported BC’s contention that the restrictions contained in the Commonwealth’s original 1954 deed to the Congregation— limiting use of the land to non-profit educational and religious activities—was “invalid and unenforceable.”

Newton’s attempt to file an immediate “interlocutory” appeal of the decision to the Massachusetts Appeals Court was denied. The Commonwealth has chosen not to appeal the Superior Court’s ruling.

In a statement, Boston College dismissed the suit as an attempt to force the Commonwealth—against its better judgment—to pursue a claim that the unenforceability of the restrictions would cause the original 1954 deed of the property to the Congregation Mishkan Tefila to be invalid, thus upending a 70-year chain of title that included two property transactions—the Commonwealth’s sale of the property to Mishkan Tefila in 1954 and the congregation’s subsequent sale to BC in 2016.   

“Newton’s suit against Boston College and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the Land Court is an ill-conceived attempt to avoid paying just compensation to Boston College by burdening the Congregation Mishkan Tefila with the economic cost of the City’s 2016 taking,” according to the statement.

“Boston College has every confidence that this suit will not change the status of the University’s Superior Court action to obtain just compensation for the 17 acres that were seized by the City by eminent domain in 2019.” 

Boston College purchased the 25-acre campus from the Mishkan Tefila Congregation for $20 million. In 2019, the City of Newton seized 17.4 acres of the property by eminent domain, paying BC $15.2 million in compensation.

Boston College sued the City, stating that the compensation was well below the fair market value of the land.

The case is still pending before the Massachusetts Land Court.