Developer Resumes the Assault on a Framingham Salem End Rd Woodland Waterfront Property and Its Neighborhood

In the ongoing war by a developer to turn a wooded waterfront property on Salem End Rd., abutting the Stearns Reservoir, into what amounts to a 50 unit motel, the next battle front has been opened.

After a March 11, 2026, Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) decision blocked a proposed bogus Dover Amendment project, the developer, Health Education Charitable Foundation, Inc., filed an appeal with the Massachusetts Land Court on April 8, 2026.

That appeal included as defendants:

1. All members of the Zoning Board of Appeals
2. The City of Framingham
3. Two local residents who filed the successful appeal to the ZBA: David Abramson and Joe Bonanno.

Full details of the filing can be found here.

While it is expected that an appeal of a ZBA decision would be filed against the ZBA members and the city as defendants, the inclusion of the two local residents, who led the fight to block the developer from destroying a tranquil neighborhood, falls little short of harassment.

State law specifically protects people from being sued simply for exercising their rights to speak out or petition the government. The applicable law is commonly referred to as the anti-SLAPP statutes, where SLAPP stands for Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation. Details on anti-SLAPP laws can be found here.

It should be entirely obvious to the developer’s legal team that the two local residents are protected from their lawsuit.

Yet, the developer persists.

It gives a good read on what kind of developer we are dealing with here.

A series of prior articles has detailed this ongoing saga, which pits a heavy weight out-of-town developer against a small, local neighborhood:

The Financial Cost of the Battle Over the Salem End Rd Property (April 6, 2026)

Framingham Zoning Board of Appeals Denies Dover Amendment Protection for Salem End Rd Development (March 13, 2026)

Salem End Rd Waterfront Property Developer Hides 80% of Lease Critical to Dover Amendment Approval (March 10, 2026)

Framingham Zoning Board of Appeals Heads for a Showdown on Salem End Rd Waterfront Property (March 9, 2026)

Nanette Magnani Makes the Case to Protect Waterfront Land on Salem End Rd (February 9, 2026)

Another Developer Rides Roughshod Over a Quiet Residential Framingham Neighborhood (September 25, 2025)

Now the Massachusetts Land Court process will roll forward.

The city has the financial resources to support a sound defense for the ZBA members, but Joe and Dave have to keep on shelling out money to defend themselves from the developer’s attacks.

The cost for these neighborhood heroes has come to more than $45,000 so far, so we should all pitch in and help.

Checks should be made out to:

CL-LAWGROUP

with a reference to Neal Glick in the memo line

and then mailed to:

Dave Abramson

4 Cherry Oca Lane

Framingham, MA 01702-5601

Dave is the point person for the neighborhood group, and Neal Glick was the lawyer who successfully argued the case to the ZBA. He works for Coren Lichtenstein LLP, a Wellesley full service law firm.

The final, remaining puzzle in all of this is that the lease, on which the developer’s Dover Amendment hinges, is still missing in action.

It was never disclosed properly in the ZBA hearings (80% of its pages were missing or redacted), and it remains absent from the April 8, 2026, court filing.

One assumes that the judge presiding over the proceedings will require that it be produced in unredacted form, so everyone will finally see what is really going on behind the scenes between the developer, the lessor, and New England Center for Children (NECC), the lessee.

NECC has more than $30 million in cash reserves, which it could easily use to build a staff residence onsite next to their school facility on Rt 9 in Southborough, rather than lease a building which does not exist, on a property whose development is controversial.

Its entanglement with a developer, who has persistently attacked a local Framingham neighborhood, remains totally out of character for such a well-regarded institution.