Mass. Gen. Laws » Part I Title VII Chapter 41
Massachusetts General Laws

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 41, § 70 (2026)

Planning board; duties

✓ current as of July 2026
Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section MAmalegislature.gov (official) JustiaChapter on Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar

Section 70. Every city and every town having a population of more than ten thousand at the last preceding national census shall, and towns having a population of less than ten thousand may, create a planning board, which shall make careful studies of the resources, possibilities and needs of the town, particularly with respect to conditions injurious to the public health or otherwise in and about rented dwellings, and make plans for the development of the municipality, with special reference to proper housing of its inhabitants. In cities the said board shall be appointed by the mayor, subject to confirmation by the council, and in towns shall be elected at the annual town meeting or be appointed in such manner as an annual town meeting may determine.

No planning board shall be established under this section after December thirty-first, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, but any such board established under this section or corresponding provisions of earlier laws and existing on said date shall continue until its existence is terminated under section eighty-one B.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 3 cases, 1961–1975 · leading case: Del Duca v. Town Adm'r of Methuen, 329 N.E.2d 748 (Mass. 1975).
Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment
Del Duca v. Town Adm'r of Methuen, 329 N.E.2d 748 (Mass. 1975). · cites it 3× “4 This plan *3 ning board replaced the planning board which had been established in 1923 under G. L. c. 41, § 70. The by-law adopted in 1938 provided that “[a] Planning Board is hereby established under the provisions of General Laws, (Ter.”
Comm'r of the Dep't of Cmty. Affairs v. Boston Redevelopment Auth., 289 N.E.2d 867 (Mass. 1972). “(See G.L. c. 41, §70.) *604 In May, 1956, a land assembly and redevelopment plan of the West End of the city of Boston (city) was prepared by the Boston Housing Authority (BHA), the predecessor of the BRA.”
Simonian v. Boston Redevelopment Auth., 174 N.E.2d 429 (Mass. 1961). “121A in respect of projects in the city of Boston 1 and (2) established the authority as a planning board under G. L. c. 41, § 70, imposed upon it all the powers and duties of the city planning board of Boston, 2 which was abolished, and transferred to it all property,…”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.