Depsite Ongoing Appeals, Construction Resumes At Surfside Crossing Development

Surfside Crossing isn’t done with the legal challenges brought forward by its opponents, but construction is proceeding nonetheless.

Following the Massachusetts Housing Appeals Committee’s (HAC) decision in favor of the Surfside Crossing project in April, construction of the controversial development has resumed off South Shore Road, despite several ongoing appeals.

The embattled project, first proposed in 2018, has spent the better part of eight years in a protracted legal fight between opponents and developers Jamie Feeley and Josh Posner. Three years ago, the 13-acre property was clear-cut, but little progress has been made since then as the legal process played out at state and local agencies. But excavators and other heavy equipment have been rumbling across the site in recent weeks, with fresh asphalt going down on Wednesday.

“The HAC decisions allow us to proceed at risk while appeals move through the process, and that’s what we are now doing,” Feeley told the Current.

The HAC’S ruling in April in favor of the 156-unit housing development reversed the denial issued by the Nantucket Zoning Board of Appeals in 2025. The decision by the state agency forced Nantucket Building Commission Paul Murphy to re-issue building permits that had previously been revoked.

“The permits for the pool and community building have been re-issued, so work is allowed to proceed on those structures,” Murphy said. “The latest decision of the Housing Appeals Committee directed me to re-issue the permits that were previously revoked. Construction of the development is allowed to proceed in all forms.”

In May, the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals and the Nantucket Land & Water Council joined a group of nine neighbors in attempting to block the Housing Appeals Committee’s recent approval of the project, setting up another round of court challenges.

“The Committee has now issued yet another decision which is premised on an erroneous interpretation of law under the Act and its implementing regulation…and is also not supported by substantial evidence on issues of Local Concern as defined therein,” the town wrote in its appeal. “The Committee's April 13, 2026 decision supplanting the [ZBA]’s comprehensive permit decision is legally erroneous, arbitrary and capricious, and not supported by substantial evidence.”

Surfside Crossing’s 156 condominium units would be contained within 18 three-story buildings (two stories above grade) on 13 acres off South Shore Road that were cleared in August 2023. As a Chapter 40B development, 25 percent of those units are required by the state to be deed-restricted for affordable housing, or a total of 39 units within the development, to residents earning at or below 80 percent of the area median income. The other 117 units would be sold at market rate, priced between $500,000 to $1.5 million.

The plans for Surfside Crossing were filed under a state statute known as Chapter 40B, which allows developers to bypass local zoning regulations and increase density if at least 20 to 25 percent of the new units have long-term affordability restrictions.