Massachusetts General Laws

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 79, § 5B (2026)

Agricultural land

✓ current as of July 2026

Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section MAmalegislature.gov (official) JustiaChapter on Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar

Section 5B. No property used for agriculture or farming as defined in section one A of chapter one hundred and twenty-eight shall be taken without the consent of the owner thereof, nor shall an easement be taken on such property without such consent, except after a hearing by the board at which such owner shall be entitled to be heard and allowed to introduce evidence that other land not used for agriculture or farming, as so defined, and without occupied buildings situated thereon is available for the public use for which it is intended to take his property. If such evidence is introduced and accepted by the board as valid, the board shall exempt said property from the taking. The provisions of this section shall not apply to takings in behalf of the commonwealth, takings for highway purposes, nor to takings authorized by the department of telecommunications and energy, except that in such takings notices of hearings required by section seventy-two of chapter one hundred and sixty-four shall be sent to all interested parties.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 1 case, 1962–1962 · leading case: Harrington v. City of Worcester, 186 N.E.2d 185 (Mass. 1962).

Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment

Harrington v. City of Worcester, 186 N.E.2d 185 (Mass. 1962). “The bill alleges that on or about April 20, 1961, the defendant notified the plaintiffs by mail that it intended to take the plaintiffs’ land by eminent domain for school purposes and that, since the land was presently used for agricultural purposes, G. L. c. 79, § 5B, would be…”

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.