This section contains the nature of the case and procedural background.

Chilmark, a Martha's Vineyard community, adopted an ordinance that limited the issuance of building permits for residential construction to one-tenth of the lots in a subdivision in the year the lots are subdivided and a further one-tenth of those lots in each of the subsequent nine years. Sturges (P) sued on grounds that Chilmark (D) lacked statutory authority for such a law and that the law was unconstitutional. The trial judge ruled that the rate of development by-law was unconstitutional. This appeal resulted.

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