Firm Profile

Real Estate Law

In the area of real estate law, Marc Deshaies been title and closing counsel for the Buzzards Bay Coalition for over twenty years. He has worked with the staff of the Buzzards Bay Coalition and their private, state, local and federally funding land conservation projects, including the recent s Nasketucket Bay Land Conservation Project which forever preserved 416 acres of open space. This project is said to be the largest land preservation project in Southeastern Massachusetts in over 25 years.

Mr. Deshaies argued successfully before the Massachusetts Appeals Court on the interpretation of 1870 deeds in the boundary line dispute representing a single plaintiff against three defendants in six years of litigation. He has represented a local congregation in the sale of their synagogue for the adaptive reuse of property by a local not for profit corporation. Marc Deshaies has represented private landowners against a corporate developer and successfully argued to a local planning board and ordinance committee to defeat the corporate developers petition to re-zone the land for commercial uses.

Mr. Deshaies represented the Kennedy-Donovan Center, Inc. on title and zoning matters and its commercial lending facility for construction of its new 10,000 square foot administrative and program services office in Foxborough, Massachusetts. He also acted as zoning counsel to the Dartmouth Housing Authority to permit the conversion of the former state police barracks into the Dartmouth Housing Authorities “O’Connor-Sisson House” to provide eight units of affordable Veteran’s housing. He was recently engaged by a group of homeowners as successor counsel to brief their zoning argument on an appeal to the Massachusetts Appeals Court on the issue of the expansion of prior nonconforming use of property.

Other examples of his work include:

• Redevelopment projects in New Bedford, representing a Boston area developer in securing zoning and planning board approvals for the adaptive rehabilitation and reuse of the Wamsutta, Manomet, and Cliftex Mill buildings into residential housing.
• Land conservation transactions over the past 20 years for the Buzzards Bay Coalition, as well as the Trustees of Reservation, the Fairhaven-Acushnet Land Preservation Trust, and the Dartmouth Natural Resources Trust as title and closing counsel.
• Represented the Massachusetts Land Conservation Trust in the acquisition of the property of world-renowned horticulturist Allen Haskell in New Bedford.
• Acts as Counsel to the Wareham Fire District for municipal matters as well as in its land acquisitions and aquifer protection projects.
• Acted as zoning and title counsel for the YWCA of Southeastern Massachusetts in its expansion of the historic Levi Standish House into new program service offices, administrative offices and congregate housing.