SJC: 1940s Statutes Released White Stadium from Article 97 Parkland Protections: Emerald Necklace Conservancy v. Boston (SJC-13865, August 19, 2026)

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that the City of Boston did not need a two-thirds legislative vote under Article 97 of the Massachusetts Constitution to lease portions of White Stadium to a professional women’s soccer team. The court held that two statutes passed in 1947 and 1950 had already diverted the stadium parcel from parkland to school use, freeing it from constitutional protection more than twenty years before Article 97 was ratified.

The decision resolves a dispute over Boston’s plans to demolish and rebuild White Stadium in Franklin Park through a public-private partnership with Boston Unity Soccer Partners LLC, which operates a National Women’s Soccer League franchise. The Emerald Necklace Conservancy and twenty individual plaintiffs sued to block the project, arguing that the stadium parcel remained protected parkland and that leasing it to a private entity for professional sports violated both Article 97 and the terms of the George Robert White Fund, a public charitable trust that owns the parcel.

The court, in an opinion by Justice Wolohojian, affirmed dismissal of all claims.

The White Fund and White Stadium

George Robert White, a soap magnate, died in 1922 and left his estate to the City of Boston as a permanent charitable trust. The fund’s income was to be used for “creating works of public utility and beauty, for the use and enjoyment of the inhabitants of the City of Boston.” White envisioned large civic projects such as a zoo, aquarium, or public forum, not routine municipal expenses. The city bore responsibility for maintaining any structures built with fund income.

In 1947, the Legislature authorized Boston to transfer city-owned land, including parkland, to the White Fund at fair market value “to be held thereafter for the purposes” of White’s will. Later that year, the city transferred a fourteen-acre parcel within Franklin Park’s Playstead to the fund for construction of a stadium. White Stadium was completed in 1949.

In 1950, the Legislature passed a second statute declaring that White Stadium and “the estate upon which it stands” would be “deemed to be a school building and yard” so long as it remained in the school committee’s custody. The statute directed that the stadium be “repaired, altered, improved and furnished in the same manner as a school building and yard” and funded through school appropriations. The school committee took over operations, and Boston public schools have used the stadium ever since for athletics, practices, and graduations.

The Lawsuit

By 2023, White Stadium had deteriorated badly. The east grandstand was fire-damaged and unusable, the foundation had structural deficiencies, plumbing froze in winter, and the facility violated building codes and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Boston issued a request for proposals seeking a partner to renovate the stadium. Boston Unity Soccer Partners was the sole respondent.

In December 2024, the city signed a lease and stadium usage agreement with Unity Soccer. The deal calls for demolition of the old stadium and construction of a replacement. Unity Soccer will build the western grandstand and a restaurant in an adjacent area called the Grove. The city will build the eastern grandstand, track, and field. Unity Soccer will lease the western grandstand and Grove for ten years (with two optional renewals) and have exclusive use of the full stadium for twenty home games per year, practices, and team events. High school football will not be allowed during soccer season. The new stadium will be open to the public from 6 A.M. to 9 P.M. on most days.

The Conservancy and individual plaintiffs sued, alleging violations of the White Fund’s terms and Article 97. A Superior Court judge denied a preliminary injunction, dismissed the trust claims for lack of standing, and after a three-day trial entered judgment for the defendants on the Article 97 claims. The SJC transferred the case on its own initiative.

Standing to Enforce the Trust

The court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge alleged breaches of the White Fund. Only the Attorney General or a trustee may sue to enforce a public charitable trust unless a plaintiff asserts “an individual interest in the charitable organization distinct from that of the general public.” Such an interest must be a personal right directly affecting the plaintiff, such as a reversionary interest, loss of personal funds, or unlawful denial of membership.

The plaintiffs here had no cognizable interest in the White Fund itself. Membership in an organization with a harmonious mission (the Conservancy) and recreational use of trust-owned land as a member of the public do not confer standing. The court declined to adopt a more relaxed multifactor test advocated by the plaintiffs, noting that for over a century Massachusetts has limited special-interest standing to prevent charitable trusts from facing “attack from all sides.”

The Prior Public Use Doctrine

The stadium parcel was originally taken by eminent domain in 1883 “as, and for, a public park” under an 1875 statute. Frederick Law Olmsted designed Franklin Park, including the Playstead area where the stadium now stands. The court had no hesitation concluding that the parcel was dedicated parkland in 1883 and therefore subject to Article 97 protection to the extent that dedication continued.

Because Article 97 was not ratified until 1972, the question was whether the 1947 and 1950 statutes satisfied the requirements of the common-law prior public use doctrine. That doctrine provides that “public lands devoted to one public use cannot be diverted to another inconsistent public use without plain and explicit legislation authorizing the diversion.” The Legislature must identify the land, state the new use, and show awareness of the existing use and willingness to surrender it.

The 1947 statute authorized transfer of parkland to the White Fund for any purpose within White’s will, which contemplated a far broader range of uses than parks alone. (Early White Fund projects included neighborhood health clinics.) The statute thus allowed the transferred land to be used for purposes inconsistent with park status. It did not, however, identify the specific land to be transferred.

The 1950 statute filled that gap. It unambiguously identified White Stadium and the parcel on which it stands, placed the stadium in the school committee’s custody and control, deemed it “a school building and yard,” and specified that upkeep would be paid with school funds. This “repeated identification of the stadium parcel as part of the school department’s facilities and responsibilities” established that the Legislature did not intend the parcel to remain dedicated to park purposes.

The court acknowledged that the 1950 statute did not explicitly reference the parcel’s prior park status, but held that the 1947 statute had amply demonstrated legislative awareness by authorizing transfer of parkland. The two statutes should be read together as a “legislative unit” because they relate to the same series of interrelated actions: sale of the parcel to the White Fund at fair market value for construction of a stadium, which was then conferred to the school department.

The court contrasted the arrangement with earlier statutes in which the Legislature authorized the White Fund to build recreational improvements on parkland but carefully specified that the land would revert to the park department and the fund would never obtain ownership. The different arrangement here signaled legislative intent to extinguish the stadium parcel’s park status.

Additional Evidence

The court noted that Boston received federal Land and Water Conservation Fund grants for Franklin Park improvements in 1978 and 1983. LWCF grants establish property as protected under Article 97, but the city never used such funds for the stadium parcel. The LWCF map of the grant area does not include the stadium parcel, and the Commonwealth’s public mapping tool shows Franklin Park generally protected by Article 97 but excludes the stadium parcel.

The court rejected the plaintiffs’ reliance on city open space and recreation plans that characterized White Stadium as Article 97-protected. The trial judge credited testimony from the city employee who prepared those plans, who said the characterization was not based on legal or historical analysis.

Access Through Franklin Park

The plaintiffs argued that the agreements grant Unity Soccer an easement for access through Franklin Park, which would constitute a disposition of Article 97 land requiring legislative approval. The court disagreed, holding that the parties intended to create a revocable license, not an irrevocable easement.

The stadium usage agreement explicitly used the term “license” and did not include the word “irrevocable,” even though the parties used that term elsewhere in the agreements when they intended to create irrevocable rights. A preceding paragraph in the same section stated that the granted right “is a license only” and that Unity Soccer would “not acquire any estate or title or real property interest.” The fundamental difference between a license and an easement is that a license is revocable at the grantor’s will.

The plaintiffs also contended that construction of pedestrian and vehicular pathways and utility lines through Franklin Park would change the affected areas’ use. The court rejected this argument, noting that pathways are ordinary elements of a park landscape and the plaintiffs had not shown that the routes would differ in kind from existing park routes or interfere with park use.

The court found no abuse of discretion in the trial judge’s exclusion of certain city policies regarding alcohol use and traffic in parks, which the plaintiffs claimed would have supported their argument. The documents at most reflected acceptable park activities but did not show that the project would change any area outside the stadium parcel to nonpark use.

Why This Matters

The decision clarifies that legislative action predating Article 97 can remove land from the provision’s protections even if the land was originally dedicated as a park. The key is whether the Legislature plainly and explicitly diverted the land to an inconsistent public use before 1972. Here, the court found such diversion in the combination of two statutes authorizing transfer of parkland to a charitable trust for broad civic purposes and designating a specific parcel as school property to be maintained with school funds.

The ruling allows Boston’s White Stadium renovation to proceed without a two-thirds legislative vote. It also reinforces strict limits on who may sue to enforce public charitable trusts, preserving the Attorney General’s traditional gatekeeping role. The court affirmed the Superior Court judgment in all respects.

Read the full opinion: Emerald Necklace Conservancy, Inc. v. City of Boston (SJC-13865, August 19, 2026).