May 7, 2024

To the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals

We are a group of neighbors from Red Gate Lane and North Whitney Street, writing in reference to the application for a special permit application by an out-of-town investor to add a house to the existing lot at 180 North Whitney Street, and turn it into a two-family non-owner-occupied investment property.

This is not in character with the neighborhood, it will harm the neighborhood, and we ask you to deny the special permit. 

Protecting a Neighborhood

This proposed project would change the character of our street and the neighborhood. North Whitney Street from below Harvard through Red Gate Lane is a neighborhood of overwhelmingly single-family houses, with many young children. The couple of multi-family houses that do exist on North Whitney above Harvard were approved many decades ago and were long owner-occupied. 

The very nature of the “Special Permit” application speaks to the fact that such a conversion is not “normal or expected” in our Zoning district. Turning a single-family house in a single-family neighborhood into a two-family investment property for an out-of-town investor does not make sense for our street or neighborhood.

We all chose this neighborhood because it is a family neighborhood, where children play in their yards and can easily walk to school, and neighbors stop to chat while they’re walking their dogs. Because the neighborhood adjoins Wildwood, the Middle School, and the High School estates, it is ideal for families with children. The economics of non-owner-occupied rental properties in Amherst means that the eight tenants in a conversion to two-family would be $1000-per-bedroom students, not families with children. 

Public Safety

The special permit is not compatible with public safety. An eight-person rental would likely mean eight cars parked at, and pulling in and out of, the driveway at 180 North Whitney Street. This house and driveway are directly next to Skillings Path, a cut through on a small piece of conservation land that elementary and secondary students use daily to get to school. It is also on a hill and a blind curve in the road, with no sidewalk on Red Gate Lane, on a street that is frequently used as a through route to get from Main Street to Strong Street and UMass. 

The increased traffic would raise a significant public safety concern for our neighborhood and the children who use Skillings Path to get to school. 

 

Economic Pressure on the Housing Market

Special Permits to convert single family homes (by building a second house with a hallway attaching them) are an end-run around the “no more than 4 unrelated people” bylaw, which slows the loss of housing to the student rental market. The “no more than 4” bylaw limits the current investment value of a single family house to around $400,000, so families can compete with the investors to buy houses. Once you allow single family houses to convert to “duplexes” with 8 tenants, the modest single family house is suddenly worth up to $600,000 to investors, so they will scoop up all single family houses. The whole town thus turns into student rentals.  

180 N Whitney Street is following this pattern. The purchase price by the investor was very high at $420,000 for a 1466 square feet, 3-bedroom house in poor condition that required gutting. This price would not have made sense to an investor unless they could convert to two-family. This house is a case in point of how allowing two–family conversions elevates prices and destroys the single-family housing market in Amherst. 

Our Street’s Recent Experience with non-owner occupied Rental Properties

174 N Whitney is a 3-unit building immediately south of 180 N Whitney that was owned by the Fox/Banks family for decades, the family that also owned 180 N Whitney until the recent sale. This 3-unit 174 N Whitney  was owner-occupied until 2018, when it was bought by an investor. While owner-occupied, noise and excessive street parking of many vehicles was never an issue. 

Since 2018, there are regularly multiple vehicles parked on the street near the blind turn to Red Gate Lane, loud coming and going at all hours, and occasional shouting and arguing at night.  

In the last year, another house on our street, 164 Red Gate, at the corner of Red Gate and Strong, was turned from a single family home into a rental property. There are now frequently seven or more cars in the driveway and on the street near that house, and one neighbor said she’s counted more than 20 cars on Red Gate and Strong from that house and the three additional rental houses around the corner on Strong Street. That has made what was already a dangerous intersection even more hazardous, as Red Gate Lane is often reduced to just one lane, making it even more challenging to turn on to or off of Strong Street. We are concerned about similar problems further down on North Whitney Street, where cars frequently come up or down the hill at high speeds around the blind 180 N Whitney turn on their way between Main Street and Strong Street.