Bridgewater · Scotland · Titicut

Bridgewater’s ADU section says nothing about size or parking, so the state rules apply

Bridgewater has a real ADU section — Sec. 4.5 of the zoning ordinance, latest revision 22 May 2025. Read it in full and two things are conspicuously absent: no size cap and no parking requirement. Which means 760 CMR 71.00 governs both, unopposed and exactly as written.

Sec. 4.5 says accessory dwelling unit. Most owners here are picturing an in-law apartment for a parent or a backyard apartment for a grown child. The state size and parking rules below apply to each of them identically.

No local provision · State rules govern unopposed

Sec. 4.5 contains no ADU size cap and no ADU parking requirement.

So the state figures apply with nothing to argue about: the smaller of 900 square feet or half the gross floor area of the principal dwelling, and not more than one additional parking space, with none required inside a half-mile of a transit station. In most towns the work is establishing which local conditions survive. Here, on the two questions that usually cost the most to resolve, there is no local condition to survive.

Sec. 4.5, read in full — no size or parking provision present

Bridgewater has no Attorney General review at all

This is a genuine structural difference and it changes how currency is checked. Bridgewater has a Town Council, not a town meeting. Its ordinances are council-adopted and are not submitted for Attorney General approval under G.L. c.40 §32. We read the AG public access portal in full and it returns zero decisions of any kind for Bridgewater — which is the definitive confirmation, not an absence of evidence.

AG MLU public access portal, read 2 September 2026 — zero Bridgewater decisions

So there is no AG decision to check the published text against, and no possibility of a disapproved-but-still-printed provision of the kind that catches people in Freetown or Fairhaven. The published ordinance is the ordinance.

Watch which file you are reading

A stale copy is in circulation

There is an older 2021 Bridgewater zoning file in general circulation that describes a different scheme. The operative text is the Zoning Ordinance effective 22 May 2025, which carries Sec. 4.5 Accessory Dwelling Units. If a figure you have been quoted does not match what is on this page, the 2021 file is the likely reason. We work from the 2025 ordinance and confirm currency with the Town Clerk before an application.

What Sec. 4.5 does say

Short-term rental: Prohibited. ADUs may not be used for short-term rental as defined in section one of M.G.L. c.64G.Sec. 4.5.4
Size: Not stated locally. The state figure governs: 900 sq ft or half the principal dwelling’s gross floor area, whichever is smaller.760 CMR 71.02
Parking: Not stated locally. 760 CMR 71.03(2)(b) governs: not more than one additional space, and none within a half mile of a transit station.760 CMR 71.03(2)(b)

The short-term rental prohibition is the one real condition, and it is worth reading before you plan around a tenant. Work your size number on the ADU size calculator.

Setbacks

Bridgewater’s accessory setback is five feet from the side or rear property line — but the row we hold is written for an accessory structure of roughly 150 to 300 square feet, which is a shed, not an ADU.

Sec. 4.4.1(1)

We are not going to read that five feet onto a 900-square-foot dwelling without reading the district row it sits against, so the district setbacks that apply to your parcel are read off the adopted dimensional table for your specific district, and we do that on your address rather than print a number here that may not be yours. The provision to have in hand is 760 CMR 71.03(3)(b)(2), which does not permit dimensional standards on a protected-use ADU stricter than those for a principal dwelling.

760 CMR 71.03(3)(b)(2)

Septic, and the Titicut and Scotland parcels

Bridgewater has municipal sewer in parts and private septic in others, and the outer parcels toward Titicut and Scotland are largely on septic. Title 5 tests design flow on the whole property’s bedroom count rather than on the new unit, so the question is whether the existing system carries the added bedroom. Where it does, an ADU can go in with no septic work at all.

310 CMR 15.000

Establishing which side of that you are on is the first thing we do. Planning ranges are in our cost guide.

We will tell you whether it works before you spend anything

Southcoast Building is an approved Feasibility Study Provider under the Massachusetts Housing Partnership ADU Incentive Program. A licensed builder walks your property, reads your parcel against the bylaw, checks the septic and the grading, and tells you whether an ADU works here and roughly what it would cost. Thirteen of our studies have been approved by MHP to date.

Request your free study

$0 to you under the MHP ADU Incentive Program · One study per property · Michael Bicho · (508) 269-2131

Where these figures come from

Town of Bridgewater Zoning Ordinance, effective 22 May 2025 — Sec. 4.5 (accessory dwelling units, 10 hits), Sec. 4.5.4 (short-term rental), Sec. 4.4.1(1) (accessory setback). Both held Bridgewater files searched in full 2 September 2026, including the superseded 2021 file.
Massachusetts Attorney General, Municipal Law Unit public access portal, read 2 September 2026 — zero decisions of any kind for Bridgewater, confirming that its ordinances are council-adopted and not submitted under G.L. c.40 §32.
760 CMR 71.00 — §71.02 size and gross floor area, §71.03(2)(b) parking, §71.03(3)(b)(2) dimensional relief. All three govern unopposed here on the questions Sec. 4.5 leaves silent.
310 CMR 15.000 (Title 5) for the design-flow and bedroom-count test.

Zoning changes, and a building inspector’s reading of it is the one that governs your permit. Nothing here is a determination about your property. It is what the adopted text and the Attorney General’s decisions say as of 8 September 2026.