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.
Here is the link to the complete case file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Xk2B6F19zMNddwgN4UTfDwnddC4ICp3R/view?usp=sharing
Attorney Pill, the bit of your reasoning that is not technicalities is also a technicality, hiding behind the problematically vague zoning bylaw, as I’m sure you are well aware. The Building Commissioner is also aware, and says Amherst must acquiesce to the vagueness or risk the town being sued, a risk that the town’s law firm seems to want to avoid at all costs, even when it costs the town. The Amherst Zoning Bylaw is allowing what is meant to be a reasonable addition to dwellings on a property (900 square feet, unless owner occupied, then 1200 total square feet) to now flourish as another method for student landlords to overcharge students on overstuffed properties.
Ira, your accusations of overstuffed and overpriced are just plain wrong. Simple economics show that when more desperately needed housing is built, the supply will better balance with the demand and prices will fall. Do you have any basis to support your claim of “overstuffed”? You certainly don’t with my rental properties, you don’t know me, or my business, and yet you’re willing to make judgement and accusations.
Further we have a business in town, this is my livelihood , my full time work. We live less than 2 miles from this particular property. We work here and check on properties every day. We are not absentee landlords. These projects pour hundreds of thousands of dollars back into the community, employing local trades, carpenters electricians painters, landscapers. Not to mention the additional tax revenue to the town. We carefully select our tenants and make it known that they are not party areas or party houses. There has not been a single noise complaint from this property per the town records in 10 years and NONE since we’ve owned it, the renters are good people furthering their education and bettering their lives. What happened to the message of “all are welcome here”?
Amherst claims to be an inclusive culture, yet there is so much hatred for students. I don’t understand it, the large majority are very good people, good neighbors, young and vibrant members of the town.
Maybe you should be curious not judgmental. You don’t even have your facts correct, starting your letter saying it’s by right ADU per state law and finishing it saying the board should deny the special permit. There are no special permits for these projects. This is an appeal to one simple measurement within the law that allows for the project, no special permits no discretionary zoning.
Please educate yourself and learn all the facts, what the laws allow for, and what the governors affordable homes act was set out to solve. We sure did when we planned these projects, and complied with all the state and local laws, the zoning and the codes.
I have worked full time in property management in this town since 2006, we take pride in our units and having a good working relationship with the town officials and our residents, who are wonderful people.
The language in the new state wide ADU bylaw is vague, even according to the town’s building commissioner, allowing for a twilight zone level, above the ground floor, that is not quite attic, not quite a 2nd floor, seemingly not taxable either. Amherst had an ADU bylaw, allowing by right either 900 square foot total livable space, or 1200, if owner occupied. The state ADU bylaw overwrote the ways this worked for Amherst, and is now so popular with student landlords there are suddenly over 40 building permit applications.
I do not know if it’s so that your rental houses comply with occupancy limitations, and charge a reasonable rate per bed. I am glad to hear your claims, which should make your brand popular with students and full time residents. But for you, a rental realtor, to not acknowledge the town-wide problems associated with being the second smallest town in the country with a flagship state university campus, takes off some points, in my book.
Also, I do agree with you that you “have a business in town.” That is why I think that there should be a tax break for owner occupants, for more of the tax bill in Amherst to be paid by such businesses. And cover the true costs of your business, so that our roads were not so broken, and our fire/police/ambulance/public works were properly funded by such businesses.
I have lived here over 30 years and have had good relationships with numerous neighbors who were students. Also volunteered with many unpaid lectures to management classes at UMass and other WMass schools. There is not a single student who knows me at all that says I am not welcoming.
I’m not saying I could not be more curious in my life, and less judgemental. But I am a neighborly neighbor and a collaborative community member. We could all be more curious and less judgemental.
This is one more expensive mess the town must face with the loss of Town Meeting’s checks and balances function. With 252 members many ambiguities and unforeseen consequences of zoning bylaws were foreseen and discussed in public so that most flawed amendments were referred back to the planning board for further revision. And, as my husband used to say to me “education is very expensive.”
With regard to the 30 day appeal period: The Amherst Bulletin regularly published building permits granted each week. With the demise of our local paper I would like to know where I can find this information on our Open Government website.
The only reason I knew of Beacon’s plans for the property next door was a call from Beacon principal Darcy Jameson to Meg Gage and myself to meet with her so she could tell us about the project. It became very clear that Beacon was not interested in our input nor willing to compromise. Fortunately the neighbors had experienced a similar Beacon project in our neighborhood ten years earlier and did learn from it.
Since the last revision of the website about five or so years ago, I find that the purported links from the GIS maps to Special Permits and Site Plan Reviews don’t work, though this allegation is not supported by staff. To do my homework both as a Board member and writer I depend on finding the information I need easily.
I have been told the website is undergoing another revision so I ask that all permits and particularly complaints from inspections under the new rental inspection bylaw by made easily accessible to the public, if only to be able to appeal in a timely fashion.