Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 41, § 81B (2026)

Section 81B. In any city or town in which a planning board is established under section eighty-one A, if any of the powers and duties of planning boards or boards of survey are being exercised and performed by a planning board established under section seventy or corresponding provisions of earlier laws, or by a board of survey established under section seventy-three or corresponding provisions of earlier laws or by a special act, or by the board of selectmen acting as a planning board, or by any other board, all such powers and duties shall cease to exist, when the members of the planning board established in such city or town under section eighty-one A take office; and thereupon the planning board established therein under section eighty-one A shall have and exercise all the powers and duties theretofore conferred and imposed by general law upon planning boards and boards of survey in cities and towns, as the case may be, and all the powers and duties of any such board theretofore conferred and imposed by special law upon any board of the city or town, with respect to any matters pending before any of said boards at the time of the establishment of the planning board in such city or town under section eighty-one A, as well as the powers imposed by this section and sections eighty-one C to eighty-one GG, inclusive. The officer or person having custody of the records or plans, or both, of the former board shall turn them over to the officer or person entitled to custody of the records and plans of the planning board established under section eighty-one A.

Planning boards established under section eighty-one A, their officers and agents, may, so far as they deem it necessary in carrying out sections eighty-one A to eighty-one J, inclusive, enter upon any lands and there make examinations and surveys, and place and maintain monuments and marks; but any person injured in his property by such entry or other acts without his consent may recover the damages so caused under chapter seventy-nine. The superior court for the county in which the land affected by any of the provisions of sections eighty-one A to eighty-one J, inclusive, lies, sitting in equity and the land court, shall have jurisdiction on petition of a planning board established under section eighty-one A, to enforce any of the provisions of said sections, and any ordinances or by-laws made thereunder, and may restrain by injunction violations thereof.