By Howard P. Blatchford, Jr.
In
Chandler v. County Commissioners of Nantucket, 437 Mass. 430 (2002), the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a local government may not invoke its power to take private property by eminent domain under G. L. c. 82, a statute that permits such takings "necessary for the purpose of laying out, altering, or relocating a
highway," when it has no intention of constructing actual roadways for public travel.