Letter: ZBA Should Deny Permits for Oversized ADU’s
ADU currently under construction at 27 Newell Court. Photo: amherstma.gov
The following letter was sent to the Zoning Board of Appeals and to Planning Director Jeff Bagg on July 14, 2026
I write in support of the abutter’s objection to the proposed oversized accessory dwelling unit at 27 Newell Court. Amherst already had a workable ADU framework that allowed appropriately scaled units, including by-right options and special-permit review where greater impacts were possible. The state ADU law, effective February 2, 2025, made conflicting local provisions unenforceable and requires protected-use ADUs to be allowed by right, including detached units, but that statewide approach did not account for Amherst’s particular conditions as a college town struggling to prevent the further conversion of neighborhoods into intensified student housing.mass.
The problem is not only the state law itself, but also the Town’s overly liberal interpretation of it. State guidance does allow municipalities to be more permissive than the statutory baseline, including allowing larger ADUs, and it bars municipalities from restricting who may live in a protected-use ADU. That makes it especially important that Amherst not stretch definitions of gross floor area, habitable space, or dimensional allowances in ways that invite jumbo structures, overcrowding, and additional pressure on already threatened neighborhoods. Those terms and definitions cannot be fuzzy or hackable.
Under Amherst’s bylaw, a special permit may be granted only if the board can make the required findings, including that the proposal is suitably located, compatible with existing uses, not a substantial inconvenience or hazard to abutters, provides adequate facilities, avoids visual disharmony, and is in harmony with the purpose and intent of the bylaw. On a proposal of this scale, those findings should not be treated as routine. They should be applied rigorously, with full attention to neighborhood character, traffic, parking, occupancy pressure, and cumulative impacts on nearby homes and streets.
For these reasons, I urge the Board to sustain the abutter’s objection and deny any special permit unless every required finding is clearly and convincingly met.
Ira Bryck has lived in Amherst since 1993, ran the Family Business Center for 25 years, hosted the “Western Mass. Business Show” on WHMP for seven years, now coaches business leaders, and is a big fan of Amherst’s downtown.
As the attoreny representing the Newell Court ADU owner Alan St. Hilaire, I respectully disagree with Ira Bryck’s submission to the Amehrst ZBA. My July 12, 2026 seventeen-page memorandum to the ZBA makes three main legal points. First, a building permit appeal was not timely filed. The appellant knew about the building permit in December, 2025 and had 30 days to appeal to the ZBA. Instead, he procrastinated until May, 2026. while Alan St. Hilaire spent many thousands of dollars in good faith reliance on his unchallenged building permit. The appellant’s attempt to circumvent the 30-day limit with a zoning enforcement request is an evasive tactic outlawed by case law. Upon learning of the building permit in December, 2025, the appellant had a duty of inquiry to inform himself about what was fully disclosed by the building permit plans that are a matter of public record. Second, the appellant lacks standing as a person aggrieved by the ADU. His claimed presumptive standing as an abutter was repealed by the Affordable Homes Act, amending Mass. General Laws, Chapter, 40A, Section 17. Mr. Kuhn fails to “plausibly demonstrate that measurable injury, which is special and different to such plaintiff, to a private legal interest that will likely flow from the decision through credible evidence.” Id. Third, the ADU at 27 Newell Court complies with Amherst Zoning Bylaw, § 5.011 “Accessory Dwelling Units” & § 6.18 “Minimum or Maximum Floors.” Anyone who disagrees should petition for an amendment to the Zoning Bylaw.