Building a dock, pier, seawall, or placing fill below the high-water mark along Plymouth County's coast requires a Chapter 91 waterways license from MassDEP. Coastal wetlands, beaches, and dunes are also protected under the Wetlands Protection Act.
Plymouth County's Cape Cod Bay and Buzzards Bay shorelines, from Plymouth, Duxbury, Marshfield, and Scituate to Wareham, Marion, and Mattapoisett, sit on public tidelands. Under Chapter 91, MGL c.91 §12, MassDEP licenses structures and the filling of land in these waterways, including docks, piers, floats, seawalls, and revetments. Any work below the mean high-water mark needs a Chapter 91 license, and most coastal projects also need an order of conditions from the conservation commission under the Wetlands Protection Act. Filling tidelands without authorization is treated as a public nuisance the state can order removed.
Building a dock, seawall, or fill in tidelands without a Chapter 91 license is an unauthorized encroachment on public trust land. MassDEP can order removal and impose penalties, and the structure is a public nuisance.
Other ordinances people look up for this city. Green dot = verified primary-source excerpt.
Plymouth County, MA
No Plymouth County or state law limits holiday lights, inflatables, or yard displays. Towns rarely regulate seasonal decorations at all, and where a bylaw to...
Plymouth County, MA
No Plymouth County rule governs garage-sale signs; towns handle them through local sign bylaws. On your own lawn a yard-sale sign is generally fine, but a si...
Plymouth County, MA
Towns, not Plymouth County, regulate signs, through zoning bylaws authorized by MGL c.40A. Those bylaws must stay content-neutral: after Reed v. Town of Gilb...
Plymouth County, MA
Rental registration and inspection are local powers, not county ones. The State Sanitary Code under MGL c.111 §127A lets each town's board of health enforce ...
Plymouth County, MA
Massachusetts has no statewide just-cause eviction law, and no Plymouth County town can add one. A landlord ends a tenancy at will with 30 days' written noti...
Plymouth County, MA
Rent control is illegal across every Plymouth County community. Massachusetts voters banned it in 1994 through Question 9, now codified as MGL c.40P §4: no c...
See how Plymouth County's coastal development rules stack up against other locations.
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