Weymouth Zoning Board Deadlocks on Funeral Home Expansion, Denies Project by Default

WEYMOUTH — November 16, 2022 — Weymouth's Zoning Board of Appeals deadlocked on the McDonald-Cohane Funeral Home expansion and unanimously upheld a brewery tap room's zoning status at its November 16 meeting. The board could not muster the four votes required to either approve or deny a special permit for a proposed addition and parking expansion at 809 Main Street — a motion to deny failed 2-3, and a motion to approve with 19 conditions failed 3-2 — leaving the application denied by default after three rounds of plan revisions that had reduced the proposed addition from roughly 6,200 square feet to approximately 2,600 square feet. Acting Chair Jonathan Moriarty said the revised plan was no longer clearly detrimental, but one dissenting member called placing a lighted commercial parking lot and four-bay garage in an R1 residential zone "still detrimental to the neighborhood." The board voted 5-0 to uphold building inspector Jeff Richards's 2018 determination that Vitamin C Brewing's tap room at 30 Moore Road is a lawful accessory use in a limited industrial zone, rejecting an appeal by neighboring business JM Family Realty, whose attorney argued a bar room is flatly not permitted in an I-1 district under Weymouth's zoning ordinance.