Particularized Pleading of Injury Required for Article III Standing in Zoning-Overlay Challenges (Abutter and Town-Meeting Voter Status Insufficient)

1. Introduction

In Kolackovsky v. Town of Rockport (1st Cir. Jan. 22, 2026), eleven Rockport, Massachusetts residents—described as “residents, registered voters, and taxpayers,” some of whom abutted the commuter rail station or lived within the relevant overlay area— challenged the Town’s creation of a new multi-family zoning overlay district.

The dispute arose from Massachusetts’ “MBTA Communities” zoning requirements, which generally require an as-of-right high-density multi-family district near transit stations. The Town first adopted a “Transit Oriented Village Overlay District” (TOVOD) by simple majority. Later, the planning board proposed a broader overlay—the “Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Communities Multi-Family Overlay District” (MCMOD). Plaintiffs filed suit in federal court the day before the town meeting vote on MCMOD, seeking declaratory relief that (i) the MCMOD required a two-thirds vote and (ii) the overlay violated state statutory and federal constitutional requirements.

The district court dismissed for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, holding plaintiffs lacked standing. The First Circuit affirmed, treating standing as dispositive and declining to reach the merits.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The First Circuit held that plaintiffs failed to plead a concrete, particularized injury-in-fact. Allegations that the proposed MCMOD would “affect sharply” property values and “undermine dramatically” property owners’ expectations were deemed conclusory and too vague to establish Article III standing. The court further held:

• Massachusetts “abutter standing” provisions do not establish standing for federal claims and did not apply on their face to this town-meeting bylaw vote.
• “Legislator standing” based on town-meeting votes could not be supported by facts appearing only in briefing and (in any event) would not prevent dismissal of a remaining state-law claim once federal claims were gone.

Accordingly, the dismissal for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction was affirmed.

3. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1) Pleading-stage standing and Rule 12 standards

• Lyman v. Baker, 954 F.3d 351 (1st Cir. 2020): Provided the court’s framework for evaluating standing at the pleading stage and emphasized that the complaint must plausibly allege standing, not merely recite conclusions.
• Hochendoner v. Genzyme Corp., 823 F.3d 724 (1st Cir. 2016): Central to the opinion’s method: ignore labels/conclusions; accept well-pleaded facts; and require “heft,” not “conclusory assertions” or “unfounded speculation.” Also supplied the principle that standing must be shown plaintiff-by-plaintiff and claim-by-claim, citing Pagán v. Calderón, 448 F.3d 16 (1st Cir. 2006).
• Schatz v. Republican State Leadership Comm., 669 F.3d 50 (1st Cir. 2012): Quoted for the two-step plausibility analysis: disregard conclusory statements and then test whether the well-pleaded facts plausibly establish entitlement to relief (here, jurisdiction).
• Massachusetts v. HHS, 923 F.3d 209 (1st. Cir. 2019): Cited for the timing rule—standing must exist “when the suit was filed.” This timing concept matters in cases like this where plaintiffs attempted to rely on post-filing events (the April 2024 vote).

2) The Article III injury-in-fact requirement

• FDA v. All. for Hippocratic Med., 602 U.S. 367 (2024): Supplied the modern three-part standing test (injury, causation, redressability) and reinforced that standing analysis often proceeds by comparing pleaded allegations to prior standing cases.
• Penobscot Nation v. Frey, 3 F.4th 484 (1st Cir. 2021): Used to underscore that even declaratory-judgment plaintiffs must satisfy Article III standing.
• Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992): Provided the canonical definitions of “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent,” and the rejection of conjectural harms.
• Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016): Reinforced “concrete” injury as something that “actually exist[s],” not an abstraction.
• Roe v. Healey, 78 F.4th 11 (1st Cir. 2023), quoting Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, 573 U.S. 149 (2014): Provided the “certainly impending” or “substantial risk” standard for future injuries.
• Reddy v. Foster, 845 F.3d 493 (1st Cir. 2017), quoting Blum v. Holder, 744 F.3d 790 (1st Cir. 2014): Used to reject injuries that are too speculative for Article III.
• Nat'l Ass'n of Gov't Emps., Inc. v. Yellen, 120 F.4th 904 (1st Cir. 2024), quoting Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA, 568 U.S. 398 (2013): Emphasized that “possible future injury” is not enough.

3) Particularization and generalized grievances

• DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332 (2006), and Becker v. Fed. Election Comm'n, 230 F.3d 381 (1st Cir. 2000): Used to frame the line between individualized injury and widely shared “generalized grievances.”

4) Zoning standing comparisons and why plaintiffs’ pleading failed

• Vill. of Belle Terre v. Boraas, 416 U.S. 1 (1974), discussing Vill. of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365 (1926): The court used these to show that even in classic zoning disputes where impacts may be uncertain, the pleadings in Euclid included specific, concrete economic allegations (approximate market values before/after zoning), unlike plaintiffs’ vague assertions here.
• Indus. Commc'ns & Elecs., Inc. v. Town of Alton, 646 F.3d 76 (1st Cir. 2011): Distinguished as a zoning case where property owners plausibly alleged concrete harms (including specific aesthetic impacts—interruption of a panoramic view), illustrating the kind of individualized factual content missing from this complaint.

5) “Abutter standing” and the primacy of federal standing doctrine

• Stone v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals of Northborough, 263 N.E.3d 818 (Mass. 2025): Cited to describe Massachusetts’ statutory “abutter” standing in certain zoning appeals.
• Hollingsworth v. Perry, 570 U.S. 693 (2013): Supplied the controlling proposition that standing in federal court is a matter of federal law, not state law—defeating any attempt to “import” Massachusetts abutter standing into Article III.
• Atlas Biologicals, Inc. v. Kutrubes, 50 F.4th 1307 (10th Cir. 2022), and Protect Our Parks, Inc. v. Chi. Park Dist., 971 F.3d 722 (7th Cir. 2020): Cited for the concept that even if state standing rules might apply to state-law claims in some settings, state law cannot “overcome” the constitutional floor of Article III.

6) Legislator standing, pleading limits, and post-filing facts

• Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433 (1939): A reference point suggesting legislator standing may exist where votes are effectively nullified, but the First Circuit ultimately refused to reach that path due to pleading/posture problems.
• Stanley v. City of Sanford, 606 U.S. 46 (2025): Used for the strict “four corners” rule on a motion to dismiss—courts do not consider evidence beyond the complaint’s well-pleaded facts.
• Redondo-Borges v. U.S. Dep't of Hous. & Urb. Dev., 421 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2005), and Calvary Chapel of Bangor v. Mills, 542 F. Supp. 3d 24 (D. Me. 2021), aff'd on other grounds, 52 F.4th 40 (1st Cir. 2022): Reinforced that plaintiffs cannot amend a complaint through briefing; allegations in oppositions/briefs do not supply jurisdictional facts missing from the complaint.
• Douglas v. Hirshon, 63 F.4th 49 (1st Cir. 2023): Cited alongside Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a), (d) to emphasize plaintiffs had procedural tools to amend or supplement pleadings to include April 2024 meeting facts, but did not.

7) Supplemental jurisdiction as a backstop basis for dismissal

• McInnis-Misenor v. Me. Med. Ctr., 319 F.3d 63 (1st Cir. 2003): Reiterated the usual practice that once federal claims are dismissed before trial, state claims normally should be dismissed as well.
• Rice v. President & Fellows of Harv. Coll., 663 F.2d 336 (1st Cir. 1981), quoting United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715 (1966): Provided the classic pendent/supplemental jurisdiction principle supporting dismissal of remaining state issues after federal claims fall out.

B. Legal Reasoning

1. Standing must be pleaded with factual specificity, plaintiff-by-plaintiff. The court treated the complaint’s core harm allegations—property values “affect[ed] sharply” and expectations “undermin[ed] dramatically”—as conclusory. Without facts showing how each plaintiff is harmed (and how), the court could not determine whether any plaintiff had a “concrete and particularized” injury.
2. General predictions about zoning impacts are not enough without tethered facts. The court did not deny that property-value diminution can be an injury; rather, it held that plaintiffs must plausibly allege it. The opinion’s comparison to Vill. of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. illustrates what “plausibly alleging” looks like in zoning: concrete, approximate valuation impacts—something plaintiffs provided “no details” about here.
3. Briefing cannot cure jurisdictional pleading defects. Plaintiffs’ appellate assertions (e.g., diminished values, traffic, blocked light/air) were disregarded because they were not in the complaint. On a motion to dismiss, the court looked only to well-pleaded facts, per Stanley v. City of Sanford and First Circuit authority.
4. State-law “abutter standing” does not supply Article III standing—and did not fit the case anyway. Even if Massachusetts grants abutters standing for certain zoning-board decisions, federal standing is governed by federal law (Hollingsworth v. Perry), and the cited Massachusetts provisions concern appeals from zoning boards/special permits—not a town-meeting vote adopting an overlay district.
5. Legislator standing was procedurally unavailable on this record. Plaintiffs’ legislator-standing theory depended on post-filing events (attendance/voting at the April 29, 2024 meeting) that were never pleaded via amendment or supplementation. The court refused to consider those facts. Additionally, even assuming arguendo the theory could apply, the remaining “vote-threshold” count was a state-law claim, and after dismissal of all federal claims, the district court had discretion under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3) to decline supplemental jurisdiction.

C. Impact

For zoning and land-use litigants in federal court: The decision raises the practical pleading bar for residents challenging municipal zoning enactments. Plaintiffs must allege individualized, non-speculative facts—e.g., concrete valuation impacts, specific interference with use/enjoyment (as in Indus. Commc'ns & Elecs., Inc. v. Town of Alton), or other particularized harms—rather than relying on generalized objections to density, traffic, or neighborhood character.

For Massachusetts “MBTA Communities” disputes: The opinion signals that state-law voting-procedure fights and compliance disputes may be difficult to litigate in federal court unless plaintiffs can plead a federal injury meeting Article III standards. It also cautions against filing pre-vote (or pre-enforcement) challenges without alleging imminent, individualized harm.

For strategy and procedure: The opinion underscores the importance of Rule 15 amendments/supplements when events occur after filing that are central to standing (such as a town meeting vote). Plaintiffs cannot assume later briefing will supply missing jurisdictional facts.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Article III standing: The constitutional requirement that a plaintiff show a real dispute suitable for federal court by proving (1) a real, personal harm (injury), (2) fairly traceable to the defendant, and (3) likely fixable by the court.
• Injury in fact: A real-world harm (or a sufficiently imminent risk of harm), not a mere disagreement with government policy.
• Concrete vs. conclusory allegations: “Concrete” facts explain what happened to whom and how; “conclusory” allegations are broad statements without details (e.g., “property values will be affected” without any factual content).
• Generalized grievance: A complaint shared by the public at large—like asserting the government violated the law—without a distinct personal injury.
• Abutter standing (state concept): A state statute may allow nearby property owners to appeal certain zoning-board decisions; that statutory permission does not automatically satisfy the federal Constitution’s standing requirements.
• Legislator standing: A narrow doctrine sometimes allowing officials (or, here, town-meeting participants) to sue when their voting power is effectively nullified; this case emphasizes that the facts supporting it must be pleaded properly.
• Supplemental jurisdiction: Even when a federal court could hear related state-law claims, it may (and often will) dismiss them once the federal claims are gone (28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3)).

5. Conclusion

Kolackovsky v. Town of Rockport is a standing-centered zoning decision that reinforces a strict pleading requirement: residents challenging a zoning overlay in federal court must allege individualized, concrete facts showing actual or imminent injury, and cannot rely on broad assertions, state-law “abutter” labels, or factual additions made only in briefing. The opinion also highlights the procedural importance of amending or supplementing pleadings when post-filing events are central to standing, and it confirms the routine practice of dismissing remaining state-law issues once federal claims have been dismissed.