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Needham ZBA grants special permits and parking waivers for Carnation Acupuncture at 105 Chestnut Street
Summary
The Town of Needham Zoning Board of Appeals unanimously granted special-permit relief and parking waivers to Carnation Acupuncture LLC for Unit 35 at Chestnut Green (105 Chestnut Street), allowing the acupuncture practice to operate with two practitioners (maximum four people at a time), appointment buffers to limit overlap, and a waiver of three parking spaces; public-health sharp-object disposal requirements apply.
The Town of Needham Zoning Board of Appeals on March 19 unanimously granted special-permit relief for Carnation Acupuncture LLC to operate an acupuncture office in Unit 35 at 105 Chestnut Street (Chestnut Green), along with waivers from certain parking-number and parking-design requirements.
Attorney George Giunta Jr. presented the application and explained Unit 35 is roughly 1,215 square feet in a commercial condominium that was built in the 1980s and contains a mix of office and medical users. The unit was conveyed with exclusive rights to four designated parking spaces but the lot functions largely on a first-come, first-served basis among other users. Giunta said the applicant already operates a similar, smaller practice in Worcester and expects appointments and scheduling to avoid parking overlap.
Manager Sina Farutanjazi, participating by Zoom, described the business model used in Worcester and said the Needham office would be appointment-driven to limit concurrent patients. "We are limited by space, and so we have practice making the appointments in a way that we don't get more than two patients per hour," Farutanjazi said, adding the practice typically manages patient flow to avoid overlap.
Under the zoning bylaw the proposed use would require more parking on paper (the medical-use calculation yields a higher parking requirement than general office use), and Giunta acknowledged that an administrative exception that can avoid full compliance requires certain design features (for example bicycle racks) that the site lacks. As a result the applicant sought a waiver reducing the strict numerical parking requirement (7 spaces by table calculation) to the four spaces the unit currently holds and sought a waiver of some design standards.
The board attached conditions: the permit allows up to two practitioners to use the unit concurrently and limits the number of people in the space to four at any time; appointments must include a buffer to minimize overlap and practical parking demand; hours were approved with operational flexibility (the board allowed a 9 a.m.–6 p.m. framing with seven-day flexibility so the owner need not return immediately to modify hours); and the applicant must comply with public-health requirements including a sharps-disposal permit. The board noted standard departmental comments were minimal (fire and police had no objection; engineering encouraged tenant coordination on shared parking; public health required sharps disposal permitting).
A motion to grant the requested special permits and waivers passed unanimously after conditions were discussed and incorporated into the decision. The board's written permit will list the operational conditions and public-health compliance obligations.
