Scituate ZBA Grants Three Residential Special Permits at July 16 Meeting

SCITUATE -- July 16, 2026, Scituate's Zoning Board of Appeals approved three residential special permits and accepted the withdrawal of a contested buildable-lot appeal at its July 16 meeting, with a sweeping change to state variance law looming over nearly every item. Chair Chris Carchia opened by warning applicants about fraudulent wire-transfer emails impersonating the ZBA. The board unanimously granted special permits for an accessory dwelling unit addition at 78 Hatherly Road for Cheryl Rice; an addition bringing a 768-square-foot cottage at 41 Irving Road to 1,152 square feet for Jeffrey D. and Kristin E. Berndt; and a raze-and-rebuild at 34 Crescent Avenue that will replace a 2,865-square-foot home with a 4,203-square-foot structure for the Newkirk/Ross Living Trust. A continued application from Dorothea Brown Zaver for a garage addition at 71 Jericho Road was also approved after revised plans achieved a net 514-square-foot decrease in impervious surface. In the evening's most contentious matter, attorney John Danahy withdrew an appeal on behalf of Michael Vazza's 63 Brockton Avenue Realty Trust after Town Counsel stated that, in his opinion, the five-thousand-square-foot Sandhills lot merged with an abutting parcel under a 1962 zoning bylaw amendment and is not buildable, though Town Counsel noted that state variance legislation effective July 1, 2026 creates a potential new route, calling it "a very wholesale change" to decades of settled standards.