Application to Remove Owner-Occupancy Requirement for High Street Duplex Withdrawn 

Report on the Meeting of the Zoning Board of Appeals, May 22, 2025

This meeting was held over Zoom and was recorded. 

Present
Steve Judge (Chair), Everald Henry, Craig Meadows, David Sloviter, and Philip White. 

Staff: Jacinta Williams (Planner) and Dave Waskiewicz (Building Inspector)

Up against triple obstacles of expiring ZBA panel members’ terms in June, resistance from the abutting neighbors, and incomplete or missing information needed by the board to make a decision, the application for a new Special Permit that removed the owner-occupancy requirement from 65 High Street was withdrawn without prejudice. This allows the owner to reapply in the future, after clearing up many of the objections raised at the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) meeting on May 22, 2025. 

To try to improve the appearance and stability of family neighborhoods, Amherst Town Meeting in 2014 amended the bylaw to allow owner-occupied two-family houses by right, but with site plan review as oversight to ensure proper management and maintenance. Before 2014, all two-family homes required a Special Permit. Abutters who wrote letters and spoke at the meeting attested that this area on High Street was mostly owner-occupied houses, with many owners having lived there for decades.

This house was unoccupied for two years between 2021 and 2023 due to significant water damage as a result of frozen pipes. Several Special Permits for this duplex had been granted over the last 30 years but carried the condition that they lapse on change of ownership.

Alec Rovitz, a recent UMass graduate, bought the house in October, 2024 and is living there currently with one other tenant. Two other tenants recently finished their degrees and moved out. Rovitz’ 65 High Street Rentals LLC is registered in Delaware, which is also his mailing address, but he claimed to live with his parents in Holliston, Massachusetts. Later, he responded to the neighbors’ concerns that the home would become a student rental, stating that he lives in the house 95% of the time, works from home, and rarely travels. He said he has local coverage for management issues if he does travel, but he wants to make his life in Amherst and be part of the neighborhood. He said he plans to rent to graduate students who are rarely home and tend toward quiet behavior. 

At the same time, he said he needs to be able to afford this house, “to keep his head above water.” He noted that in the future he may need to travel for prolonged periods for work and would need to rent out his portion of the house to pay for living expenses at his temporary quarters. To this end, he sought to renew the Special Permit that expired with the change in ownership so that it did not require the house to be owner-occupied. He said that he plans to convert a porch on the south side of the house to a bedroom for himself, and enclose the second-floor porch to protect the new bedroom below from water damage. He also sought relief from the requirement that cars be parked at least eight feet from the house and that 50% of them be compact-size, because he wants to widen the gravel driveway to allow parking for three cars on the driveway. The house has a three-bay garage, but Rovitz said two of the bays are filled with storage items from previous owners, and he has been unable to assess the structural integrity of that section of the garage.

As planned, the remodeled two-family house would have a three-bedroom unit on the first floor and a four-bedroom unit occupying the second and third floors. The 3800 sq. ft. house is sited on a nearly half-acre lot in the general residence (RG) district.

The house is an elegant Second Empire house dating to around 1865 distinguished by its mansard roof. It is unique in this historic neighborhood, which is noted primarily for its Italianate homes, many which had been previously owned by 19^th-century downtown merchants. Sixty-five High Street was owned by John B. Brown, owner of a general store by the train depot on Main Street. The MACRIS inventory states that “the house reflects the owner’s comfortable status.”

Among the issues identified by the ZBA to be addressed in any future applications:

Where will the owner live? Will this be his permanent address? The lease, complaint, and management plans were missing from the current application. The management plan must address how many guests can visit for parties and how many can stay overnight and for how long. The plan must also specify how noise and nuisance behavior will be addressed. Also, landscaping plans were not included in the application. Most importantly, the second-floor unit is accessible to the first-floor tenants because there is no door at the top of the stairs from the main entrance. Also, with the creation of a bedroom out of the first-floor porch, the second egress from the first floor would be through the bedroom, which is not allowed by the building code. As it currently stands, this is basically still a one-family house with two kitchens, because the units are not independent from each other.

The board lacked the four votes necessary to approve a permit because there were “too many maybes.” With the terms of ZBA chair Steve Judge and full member David Sloviter coming to an end on June 30 (although Sloviter is eligible to be reappointed for another term),  all the issues would need to be resolved in the next month, which would be difficult. Therefore, the board advised that the applicant withdraw the application and work with staff to bring a more complete application back at a later date.