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Zoning board approves Rental City move to 51 Fremont Street with parking waivers
Summary
The Needham Zoning Board of Appeals granted Rental City Inc. a special permit to operate an equipment rental business with accessory retail at 51 Fremont Street and approved waivers for parking number and design, subject to customary departmental conditions.
The Needham Zoning Board of Appeals on a voice vote approved a special permit allowing Rental City Inc. to open an equipment rental business with accessory retail at 51 Fremont Street and waived strict adherence to required parking numbers and certain design requirements.
The board granted the permit after hearing from the applicant’s attorney, George Giunta Jr., who described the property as a commercially used lot in the Mixed Use 128 zoning district and said the proposed operation will keep rental equipment inside the building to comply with the bylaw. “Quirk of our bylaw says that for equipment rental services, everything for rent has to be contained within the building. So everything, including the Bobcat, the mini excavator, and the mini backhoe will all be inside the building,” Giunta told the board.
The application covers a 32,943-square-foot lot at the corner of Fremont and Wexford Streets with an existing commercial building constructed in 1957. Giunta said Rental City has operated in Wellesley for more than 40 years and proposes a similar operation in Needham with most inventory kept indoors; a 500-gallon underground propane tank will be installed inside a fenced area for accessory retail sales of cylinder refills. The applicant requested a waiver from the bylaw-calculated requirement of 25 spaces because 19 on-site spaces exist and, the applicant argued, actual business demand is lower than the bylaw’s formula.
The board heard that town departments reviewed the proposal: the planning board offered no comment; the building inspector had no objection; the fire department approved the application; the police department had no comments; and the public works department asked that the site plan show existing and proposed underground utilities for the LP tank. No written objections were placed on the record.
Board members said they were satisfied with the proposal’s fit in that part of town and with the applicant’s commitment to keep rental equipment inside the building. After discussion of hours and parking, a board member moved to approve the special permit and the requested parking and design waivers; the motion passed on a voice vote and the chair declared the application approved.
The decision includes department-level requirements identified in the hearing (site plan showing utilities for the underground LP tank, any building and fire-safety permits needed for the propane installation) and the board’s standard permitting conditions. The applicant may now proceed with permit-level coordination with town departments and required inspections.
For transparency: the board conducted a voice vote and recorded no roll-call tally on the record; department approvals and site-plan conditions were referenced in the hearing record.
