The state’s Supreme Court will take up an appeal of a decision by the state’s Housing Appeals Board to dismiss an appeal related to the Silver Scone Teas tea party business in New Ipswich.

Silver Scone, owned by Jane Elwell and operated out of her home on River Road, has been granted the needed variance and site plan review approvals by the town’s zoning and planning boards to operate a part-time tea party business in the town’s Village District. Neighbors who oppose the approvals have filed multiple appeals of the decision, including to the state’s Housing Appeals Board.

The group of appellants includes Richard Craig and Sharin Smeeth, Robert and Annmarie Fournier, Stan Zabierek and Louise Delpapa, Gregory and Soyoo Caltabiano, Christopher O’Leary, Elizabeth Freeman, Colin Carroll and Nancy Clark, who is also acting as the group’s lawyer.

The neighbors are appealing a decision by the HAB to dismiss an appeal of a Zoning Board decision that upheld certain Planning Board interpretations related to the approval of the site plan review for Silver Scone. The HAB dismissed the case after ruling that neighbors filed the appeal after the 30-day deadline of the town completing its own request for appeal process.

The neighbors objected to the dismissal, filing a motion for reconsideration, arguing that a timely appeal had been made to the Hillsborough Superior Court, though that case was dismissed without prejudice with instructions to refile the case.

Elwell, through her attorney Kelleigh C. Gleason of Gleason Legal, argued that in their Superior Court appeal, the neighbors did not include the zoning claims at issue with the HAB complaint.

“Petitioners’ argument is essentially that because the Planning Board claims were dismissed without prejudice, the Zoning Board claims that were not timely pled or allowed by way of amendment were also dismissed without prejudice. This is simply not the case,” Gleason wrote. “Petitioners’ argument then requires that this board make a second leap in logic and equate the dismissal of one action to a mandate that the HAB accept an untimely filed separate action. This is also not the case.”

Gleason said the the filings were “untimely and frivolous.”

The HAB found that the board had not overlooked or misapprehended facts or the law, and denied the motion for a rehearing. Now the neighbor group is appealing that decision to the state’s Supreme Court. The court is mandated to take up the appeal, which will examine whether the HAB erred in dismissing the appeal.

Ashley Saari can be reached at 603-924-7172, Ext. 244, or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on X @AshleySaariMLT.