THE TOWN OF Nahant had the right to seize property owned by Northeastern University, blocking a planned university science center expansion, to preserve the parcel for open space, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled on Thursday.

The ruling settled eight years of debate and litigation over a 28.7-acre parcel known as East Point at the edge of the tiny peninsula community.

Town Meeting voters in 2021 decided to use eminent domain powers to claim about 12 of 21 acres and access rights to land owned by Northeastern University since the 1960s to preserve it for conservation.

University officials argued successfully before a lower court that this was simply a pretext to stand in the way of a planned 55,000-square-foot development, and that it was effectively letting the town sidestep limits on local zoning powers.

But the state’s highest court disagreed.

“In short, the town’s stated purpose for the taking is a proper public purpose” that aligned with past actions by the town indicating interest in preserving the area, and not a bad faith ploy, wrote Justice Elizabeth Dewar for a unanimous court. The court, she wrote in a 43-page opinion, was also “unpersuaded” by the university’s other arguments against the taking.

The court reversed the Superior Court’s summary judgment in favor of Northeastern and sent the case back for an order establishing the town’s right to take the property.

The town is “pleased” by the SJC’s reversal of the Superior Court ruling, Town Administrator Alison Nieto said in a statement, and “looks forward to moving forward with this process.”

Northeastern did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Both Northeastern and the tiny North Shore community own part of East Point, which includes the university’s Marine Science Center and a coastal open area overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, with beaches, a meadow, woodlands, cliffs, and other shoreline.

Northeastern’s land has long housed a 31,083-square-foot research facility, repurposed from three former military bunkers, as well as other smaller structures and parking lots. The rest of the land to the east was largely kept as open space, with uplands, wetlands, and a beach. Alongside that land, the town’s 8 acres on East Point operate as a public park.

That open space and Northeastern’s land were designated as a “Natural Resource Zoning District” in 1991. In the years since, the SJC noted, public planning and public surveys demonstrated an interest from Nahant and its residents in protecting East Point’s open space, conserve natural areas, and provide access to the coastline.

In 2018, the university announced plans to expand its presence with a new Coastal Sustainability Institute, anchored by a 55,000-square-foot building. All three members of Nahant’s Board of Selectmen announced their opposition to the project, the high court noted.

Years of public back-and-forth followed, with locals decrying possible infrastructure strains, disruption to the habitat, and the impact on the beauty of East Point.

A supermajority of Nahant Town Meeting voters in 2021 authorized the Board of Selectmen to create easements on Northeastern land “for open space, recreation, conservation and/or historic preservation purposes.” The move would block development on a portion of the site and allow public access.

The town filed a petition in the Superior Court requesting authorization to take the property and create the easements. Northeastern opposed the petition, arguing that despite Nahant’s claims that the taking was to preserve open space and for related purposes, the action was actually for the sole purpose of stopping Northeastern’s project.

The SJC took up the case, with justices seemingly troubled about whether they should parse the motivations of the town’s voters.

“To be sure,” Dewar wrote, “it is undisputed that the town pursued the taking in response to Northeastern’s announcement of the project, that there was vehement opposition to the project on the part of town officials and residents, and that the taking would in effect block the project.”

But that is the nature of reserving land for conservation, she noted.

“It is axiomatic that taking a conservation easement will have the effect of preventing development; preventing development is the very purpose of imposing such an easement on land valued as an open space resource,” she wrote.

Justices dislike second-guessing the intentions of a Town Meeting or other local legislative body. The court’s posture in cases like this is to presume that the reasons given for using town powers are valid, unless the property owner can prove otherwise.

The long history of the town acting to try to use East Point for conversation and recreation cuts against Northeastern’s claim that the motive was “solely” to block the project, the court concluded.

As to the public policy implications, Northeastern argued that Nahant was pulling a fast one to get around the state Dover Amendment, which bars municipalities from imposing zoning ordinances or bylaws that regulate or restrict the use of land or structures for educational purposes on land owned or leased by a nonprofit educational corporation.

“The Town is using the threat of eminent domain as a cudgel to force Northeastern to submit to regulation that the Town is powerless to effect through its zoning powers,” the university wrote in its brief.

But the high court rejected the claim. As the Legislature has limited the way cities and towns can use their zoning powers on educational parcels, Dewar wrote, it could have done so with eminent domain powers if it wanted. So as long as the taking was for a constitutional public purpose, like conservation, this was a perfectly legitimate use of eminent domain powers.