Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell has weighed in on a local Zoning Board of Appeals issue, finding a controversial homeless shelter proposal on Cape Cod — that sparked concerns about migrants — is a protected educational use.

Campbell’s office has sent a letter to the Dennis Zoning Board of Appeals, urging a “quick and smooth” resolution on the proposal which has fostered division between the town and a regional housing nonprofit for months.

This is the first time the Attorney General’s Office has gotten involved in a local ZBA issue in recent memory, an office spokesperson told the Herald on Tuesday.

Local opposition, also coming from neighboring Harwich, has delayed applicant, Housing Assistance Corp., from merging its three family shelters in Hyannis, Bourne and Falmouth, into one central space at a former 128-bed nursing home in South Dennis.

Residents and officials have questioned how attorneys and Dennis’ building commissioner have determined the project fits the criteria of the Dover Amendment — a state statute that exempts agricultural, religious, and educational uses from certain zoning restrictions.

The concerns triggered an appeal from the Dennis Planning Board last month on the building commissioner’s issuance of a building permit to HAC in late July. The Cape Cod Commission, a regional board, has found the project would have no regional impact, denying a discretionary referral from the towns of Dennis and Harwich.

In a letter sent to the ZBA on Monday, assistant attorneys general Margaret J. Hurley and Esme Caramello wrote: “The Dover Amendment creates a wide umbrella of protection for educational uses of land, and in the view of the Attorney General, HAC’s proposal falls comfortably within its spread.”

Hurley and Caramello highlighted curricular and operational materials that HAC would provide at the 57,000-square-foot facility, housing up to 79 homeless families or 177 individuals. The building can only be accessed via an extension off a main road in neighboring Harwich.

Adult residents would be required to complete HAC’s “Ending Homelessness Course.” The program features lessons on “budgeting and financial literacy, navigating various government benefit systems, landlord-tenant law, and life skills such as self-care, cooking, and housekeeping.”

Tenants would also gain one-on-one guidance on “securing new housing,” which the Attorney General’s Office says is “a form of experiential education that aims not only to solve an immediate housing problem but to serve as training for independent searches in the future.”

Families would live in 272-square-foot rooms featuring a half-bathroom, refrigerator and microwave, and they’d share a communal kitchen and shower. The tight spaces would lack televisions and chairs.

Average stays are about nine months to a year.

Priority, officials have said, would be given to mostly single mothers of infants and young children and not migrants. Some Dennis and Harwich community members have remained skeptical during the Massachusetts migrant crisis.

Tension around the proposal boiled over earlier this summer when HAC attorney Robert Brennan unleashed his frustration on Dennis Planning Board for allowing, “misstatements to come in” during a May hearing  on the project that connected it to migrants.

“You are floundering here,” Brennan told the board. “I understand immigration is an issue. We have a broken immigration system. This is not it. This is not the issue here.”

Board member Rich Hamlin countered Brennan’s argument, saying the attorney’s criticism didn’t accurately convey the board’s concerns.

“I don’t care who lives in this place, period,” Hamlin said. “This issue for me is one simple item: Dover Amendment. It is not the primary use of this facility, period.”

The facility would be funded through the state’s emergency housing assistance program, which operates migrant shelters across Massachusetts.

That fact, however, “does not change the analysis” of the Dennis shelter meeting the Dover Amendment conditions as a protected educational use, the Attorney General’s Office wrote in its letter.

“In the face of an affordability crisis affecting families across the state, housing can be extremely hard to find and keep,” the letter states. “Every dollar that a homeless services organization like HAC spends fighting for its right to serve these families is a dollar it does not spend helping them.”

“The people of the Commonwealth, whom the Attorney General represents, have a strong interest in seeing this and similar matters proceed to a resolution quickly and smoothly,” it concludes.

A former nursing home in Dennis, on Cape Cod, has been a point of controversy for months as an applicant looks to turn it into a homeless shelter. (Matt Stone/Boston Herald)