AMHERST — A Land Court lawsuit has been filed against the Zoning Board of Appeals after its members recently ruled, in a unanimous vote, that an accessory dwelling unit being constructed at 27 Newell Court is too large to comply with Amherst’s zoning bylaw.
Contending that members erred in overturning how the building commissioner calculated the gross square footage in the building, attorney Michael Pill, of Green, Miles, Lipton LLP, filed the lawsuit Tuesday.
The complaint also alleges that the board’s Aug. 13 decision came several months after a 30-day period to appeal the building permit expired in early 2026.
At the center of the dispute is the size of the home being built by Alan St. Hilaire, of Hadley, next to a principal dwelling at 27 Newell Court. The Zoning Board of Appeals acted on an appeal from Noah Kuhn of 9 Newell Court, alleging that the building is more than 900 square feet because two bedrooms and a bathroom were not counted in the gross floor area because they are in the attic.
Town zoning limits the size of so-called protected ADUs to 900 feet, but local ADUs can be up to 1,200 square feet, so long as the property owner lives in either the accessory dwelling unit or principal residence.
“The ZBA decision adopted at its August 13, 2026 meeting ordered the Amherst
Building Commissioner to require plaintiff Newell Court to demolish in part the Newell Court ADU by removing two bedrooms and a bathroom that were already constructed in good faith reliance upon a building permit that was never appealed,” the lawsuit states.
In their decision, Zoning Board of Appeals members indicated an attic can’t be livable space. Chairman Everald Henry said that the size limitation is the only protection for residents who live near these developments.
“Regardless of whether an ‘attic’ is habitable space, it is not included as part of a
building’s ‘Gross Floor Area’ by either the Amherst Zoning Bylaw or the state ADU regulations,” the lawsuit states.
Joining in the lawsuit, in addition to Newell Court LLC and Gray & Taylor LLC, which are both managed by St. Hilaire, are Kilerine Properties LLC, managed by Killian O’Connell of Amherst, Wild Onion Rentals LLC, managed by Jesse Christopher Tzeng of Longmeadow, and Susan Han, as trustee of the Revocable Indenture of Trust for Susan Han.
They all have stakes in other properties identified as accessory dwelling units and in various stages of permitting and construction. Those buildings are at 62 Gray St., 131 Pine St., 174 North Whitney St., 58 South East St., 76 Chestnut St., 2 Shays St., 290 West St., 79 Taylor St. and 194 College St.
Pill also argues the statute of limitations has expired, as the 30-day appeal window ended by early 2026, and that the Zoning Board of Appeals acted on an “untimely zoning enforcement request by one Noah Kuhn.”
It goes on to say that Kuhn deliberately procrastinated, first filing an objection in May: “His attempt to circumvent the 30-day limit with a zoning enforcement request is an evasive tactic specifically outlawed by case law.”
