Home Builders Ass'n of Cape Cod, Inc. v. Cape Cod Commission

We transferred this case here on our own motion to decide whether a district of critical planning concern (DCPC), comprising the entire town of Barnstable (Barnstable DCPC), is valid under St. 1989, c. 716, “An Act establishing the Cape Cod commission” (Act). A DCPC is, essentially, a land use planning device that in this case was used to establish a rate of development in a Cape Cod municipality in order to preserve certain resources pursuant to a complex legislatively authorized regulatory scheme that we shall describe shortly. A judge in the Superior Court concluded that the Barnstable…