Town of Westford v. Kilburn

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• reasoning that absent sufficient land use standards, “the door is opened to the exercise of . . . discretion in an arbitrary or discriminatory fashion”
• noting that a vague regulation allows for “unbridled discrimination” by a Court or municipal body tasked with its interpretation
• noting that this Court looks to the entire bylaw, not just a specific subsection to determine the standard to be applied
• stating that regulations should be “general enough to avoid inflexible results”
• “Because zoning ordinances are in derogation of common law property rights, they are strictly construed.”
• lack of guiding standards in the ordinance leaves applicant uncertain as to what factors to be considered by municipal panel, and opens the door to exercise of discretion in an arbitrary or discriminatory fashion

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).