Abutter lawsuits have delayed the construction of Shillman House, a 150-unit mixed income community for seniors in Framingham, but a new study indicates that such litigation generally doesn’t prevent such projects from being built.

Lawsuits seeking to block affordable housing developments in Bay State communities aren’t likely to be successful, according to a new study.

The report, which examined 84 lawsuits filed by abutters or towns since 2000, found that courts overturned a permit approval in only one case. Nearly all of the cases involved projects with comprehensive permits issued under Chapter 40B, the state’s so-called anti-snob zoning law.

“The findings are certainly not surprising,” said John T. Smolak, a North Andover-based attorney who represents developers. “Chapter 40B was meant to expedite the creation of housing and clearly that’s not happening for a variety of factors.”

The study, released by the Boston-based Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, found that lawsuits delayed projects by an average of two years. Delays ranged from six months to six years, costing developers money in legal fees and higher construction costs.

“While most appellants litigate because of environmental, design or other concerns, they recognize that even if they are likely to lose in the courts, the delay imposed by litigation may help stop a project. A few appellants have even stated that delay, rather than preventing a project, is the primary goal,” the study states.

Smolak, a partner at Smolak & Vaughan, said developers behind smaller projects often can’t absorb the costs of lengthy legal battles. He’s seen projects postponed by three years or more.

“The result of the lengthy appeals process and resulting costs is that only the larger, well-financed national residential development companies will be able to afford the carrying costs of delay resulting from the appeals process,” he said. “Accordingly, the trend of national residential development companies entering the Massachusetts residential market and developing larger affordable housing projects will continue into the foreseeable future.”

The Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly (JCHE) knows from experience how costly it can be to get entangled in lawsuits. The Brighton-based nonprofit group has been fighting for more than three years to build a 150-unit, mixed-income development for seniors in Framingham.

Ellen Feingold, JCHE president, estimated the organization has spent over half a million dollars in legal fees.

“Having these lawsuits, it really does allow people to just simply block the construction of affordable housing,” said Feingold. “In our case, the money that we have spent defending this lawsuit could so easily have gone into additional landscaping or other things that the abutters would have liked the project to provide for them.”

The Framingham Zoning Board of Appeals granted a comprehensive permit to JCHE in July 2004 to build Shillman House, a project that will include 90 affordable units.

Abutters appealed the decision to Land Court in August of that year, arguing that the ZBA didn’t consider traffic impacts and density, and that the project would have a negative effect on their property values. The Land Court dismissed the appeal two years later and the abutters took their claims to the Appeals Court.

The Appeals Court upheld the Land Court decision last November and the abutters sought further review by the state Supreme Judicial Court.

“I’m disappointed that our neighbors are so determined to block the construction that they would not try to help us use that money [spent on the lawsuit] more constructively,” Feingold said.

Aaron Gornstein, CHAPA’s executive director, said one of the study’s most significant findings is that ZBA decisions were upheld in every case except one.

Even in that case, the Zoning Board’s decision was overturned because of a technicality, Gornstein said. “It was overturned because the ZBA decision inadvertently omitted certain language about the regulatory requirements,” he said.

“Municipalities are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases, and certainly the abutters are, to challenges projects and they’re rarely coming up on top. You have to question whether it’s the wisest use of public dollars to go through this whole process,” Gornstein said.

Some of the more common arguments abutters and towns use in their attempts to block projects are that the housing will harm the environment, create traffic problems or reduce property values, according to Ann Verrilli, CHAPA’s research director and the report’s author.

In some cases, so much time passes from the initial permit approval until construction begins that developers face drastically different housing market conditions, said Verrilli.

“It really adds risk to the process,” she said.