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IPSWICH — Two abutters spearheading the legal challenge against the Essex Road 40B have withdrawn after negotiating a secret settlement with the developers.
The agreement caught fellow opponents off guard, setting in motion a series of legal maneuvers as they seek to carry on the fight.
The action centers around a 40B development on the property at the Bruni Marketplace between 26 and 44 Essex Road (Route 133).
The owner, John Bruni, got approval to build 214 units under the state’s so-called affordable housing law, Chapter 40B. That lets developers bypass most local zoning if 25% of the units are designated as “affordable,” and if less than 10% of a community’s housing is on the state’s subsidized housing inventory.
The proposal came to be known by several names, including the Bruni Project, the Essex Road 40B, and Essex Pastures.
In July 2024, Bruni signed a purchase and sales agreement with AvalonBay Communities, a multifamily, real estate investment trust (REIT) listed on the S&P 500. It had annual revenues of around $3.04 billion in 2025, according to its annual report.
In September of 2025, two days before the Ipswich Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) and AvalonBay reached an agreement, neighbors Keri MacRae and Susan and Chris O’Leary challenged the decision in Essex County Superior Court.
Secret agreement
Represented by Hill Law of Boston, the residents, who live on Heartbreak Road, acted in conjunction with Ipswich Citizens for Sustainable Growth (ICSG), which had pursued the issue for the last six years.
After the appeal was filed, court documents said, “AvalonBay’s Senior Vice President of Development, David O. Gillespie, had separate discussions with MacRae and the O’Learys regarding a potential settlement of their claims.”
Two separate agreements were reached for an undisclosed sum, and both had a confidentiality clause. The parties then moved to dismiss the case “with prejudice,” permanently ending the matter.
“Without the knowledge of our group or our lawyers, they negotiated a settlement for an undisclosed sum of money with those abutters,” ICSG organizer Chris Florio said in an email to residents.
“These abutters took this settlement even though the appeal was paid for by donations from many of you and filed by the attorneys for our group,” he said.
The agreement also forced Hill Law to withdraw as counsel for the Heartbreak Road abutters.
No notification
Attorney Daniel Hill said his firm learned through a court filing that the abutters “had negotiated and entered into agreements to settle this case with Avalon, without notifying Hill Law, and without Hill Law’s counsel.”
He said there was now “an irreconcilable conflict of interest between the Plaintiffs and Hill Law’s other individual clients in this matter, who are residents of Ipswich and neighbors of the proposed development.”
Local attorney Richard Kallman then became the Heartbreak Road neighbors’ attorney.
To resume the case on behalf of ICSG, Peter Gordon of Gordon Greenhouses, Chris Florio, Sheffield Van Buren, and 94 Essex Road LLC maintained Rudolph Friedmann LLP as counsel, which filed a motion to intervene. In legal parlance, they became the “proposed intervenors.”
Gordon Greenhouses are direct abutters while Florio and Van Buren have property in Ipswich. The principals behind 94 Essex Road are listed by the Secretary of the Commonwealth as Michael and Corine Cognata of Marblehead.
The intervenors said the Heartbreak Road residents “shared a common legal strategy, made strategic litigation decisions collaboratively, and funded the prosecution of this litigation collectively by paying their joint counsel’s legal fees and court costs.”
AvalonBay objected, saying the intervenors were too late. The “Proposed Intervenors’ attempt to resurrect a closed case should be summarily denied as untimely, prejudicial, and futile,” its motion said.
A hearing was held February 6, and Judge Robert Foster is now considering a ruling.
A note about affordability
For the purposes of the state’s 40B system, affordability is calculated based on an “area median income” (AMI) database maintained by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Ipswich falls into the Boston and Cambridge catchment area where the median family income is said to be $160,900.
The “affordable” rental units will go to people making 80% or less than the AMI.
That means the income limit for a single person is $92,650. Under the rules, they cannot spend more than 30% of their income on housing and utilities. That means rent, electric, broadband and other services would be capped at $2,316.25 a month for one person.
For a family of four, rent plus utilities would be capped at $3,307.50 a month.
