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KoPELMAN AND PAIGE, P. C. <br />Memorandum to Municipal Clients <br />• September 19, 1985 <br />Page 3. <br />The court ruled, however, that the first sentence <br />of the fourth paragraph of S6 is referring to the status <br />of the lot as recorded or endorsed immediately prior to <br />the zoning change. It reasoned that the first recorded <br />instrument on which a separate lot is shown is almost <br />always a subdivision plan, which depicts adjoining lots <br />held, at that time, by the same person. If this portion <br />of S6 were interpreted to require separate ownership at <br />the time of recording or endorsement of the first plan <br />showing the lot, the protections of S6 would in effect be <br />nullified. It also ruled that the word 'recording" <br />refers to the recording of any instrument, including a <br />deed. Therefore, if a lot were separately owned at the <br />time of the most recent instrument of record prior to the <br />adoption of the Zoning By -Law requirement, it is grandfathered <br />as an isolated lot by c. 40A S6 (assuming it meets all <br />the other requirements), even though a previously recorded <br />plan may show that the lot at one time was held in common <br />ownership. <br />In comparison, the protection for lots which are <br />• held in common ownership with contiguous land, found <br />in the second sentence of the fourth paragraph of c. 40A <br />56, is, not suprisingly, much more limited. The second <br />sentence of 56 provides that: <br />Any increase in area, frontage, width, yard, or depth <br />requirement of a zoning ordinance or by-law shall <br />not apply for a period of five years from its <br />effective date or for five years after January first, <br />nineteen hundred and seventy-six, whichever is <br />later, to a lot for single and two family residential <br />use, provided the plan for such lot was recorded or <br />endorsed and such lot was held in common ownership <br />with any adjoining land and conformed to the existing <br />zoning requirements as of January first, nineteen <br />hundred and seventy-six, and had less area, frontage, <br />width, yard or depth requirements than the newly <br />effective zoning requirements but contained at <br />least seven thousand five hundred square feet of <br />area and seventy-five feet of frontage, and provided <br />that said five year period does not commence prior <br />to January first, nineteen hundred and seventy-six, <br />and provided further that the provision of this <br />sentence shall not apply to more than three of such <br />adjoining lots held in common ownership. <br />1 • <br />