Revere Zoning Ordinance: Permits, Variances, and Penalties

The Revere zoning ordinance, found in Title 17 of the City of Revere Code of Ordinances, controls how every parcel in the city can be used, what can be built on it, and how large that building can be. It draws its authority from Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 40A, the state statute that lets cities and towns regulate land use.¹ If you are adding a deck, converting a house to commercial use, opening a business, or building from scratch, this is the first body of rules to check.

Working through it is a two-step job. First, find your zoning district. Second, confirm that what you want to do is allowed there and will physically fit within the dimensional limits.

Finding Your Zoning District

Revere divides its land into 19 districts, each established by Chapter 17.12 and shown on the official zoning map.² You can look up any parcel on the city’s public GIS portal at gis.revere.org, which includes an interactive zoning map.³

The residential districts run from the strictest to the densest:

RA and RA1 allow single-family homes only. RA1 requires a larger lot (8,000 square feet and 80 feet of frontage versus RA’s 6,000 square feet and 60 feet).
RB and RB1 allow single-family and two-family homes.
RC, RC1, RC2, and RC3 allow apartment buildings, with height limits running from 50 feet in RC up to 200 feet in RC2.

Business and commercial activity is concentrated in five districts: NB (small neighborhood retail), GB and GB1 (general business and professional offices), CB (the central business district), and HB (highway-oriented commercial).² Industrial uses fall under LI (Limited Industrial) and IP (Industrial Park). The city also has specialty districts for technology enterprise, planned developments, and conservation and open space.

What You Can Do in Your District

Knowing the district is only half the answer. Chapter 17.16 contains the Table of Uses, which lists every type of activity against every district and marks the combination in one of three ways:⁴

“Yes” means the use is permitted by right. You can go straight for a building permit.
“SP” means you need a special permit, granted after a public hearing before the city council.
“No” means the use is prohibited in that district.

If a use is not listed at all, treat it as prohibited.⁴ This is where most property owners get tripped up. Check the table before you sign a lease, buy a property, or start renovations.

Dimensional Limits

Even when a use is allowed, the building has to fit the physical constraints in Chapter 17.24’s Table of Dimensional Controls: lot size, frontage, setbacks, building height, and lot coverage.⁵ Some key minimums for lot area and frontage:

RA: 6,000 square feet, 60 feet of frontage
RB/RB1: 8,000 square feet, 70–80 feet of frontage
RC: 10,000 square feet, 100 feet of frontage
CB: 4,000 square feet, 40 feet of frontage
LI: 15,000 square feet, 100 feet of frontage
IP: 130,000 square feet, 150 feet of frontage

Setbacks set the minimum distance between a building and each property line, front, rear, and sides. Height limits vary sharply by district, which is why RC2 permits 200-foot towers while RA tops out much lower.⁵ Lot coverage limits cap the percentage of a parcel a building footprint can occupy. A project with the right use can still be denied a building permit if it exceeds any dimensional standard, so treat these as hard limits.

Special Permit or Variance: Which One Do You Need

If your project doesn’t fit by right, you need relief. Revere grants two different kinds of relief through two different bodies under two different standards, and confusing them wastes months.

Special Permit

A special permit authorizes a use the ordinance already contemplates in your district but reserves for case-by-case review. In Revere, the city council is the special permit granting authority under Chapter 17.48. The standard is that the proposed use must be “in harmony with the general purpose and intent” of the zoning ordinance.⁶ If the Table of Uses marks your activity “SP” in your district, this is your path.

Variance

A variance is an exception to the rules for a specific property, usually a dimensional rule you can’t meet. The Zoning Board of Appeals handles variances under Chapter 17.52.⁷ To win one, you have to prove three things:

Your property has unusual soil conditions, shape, or topography that affect it specifically and not the district generally.
Strictly enforcing the ordinance would cause you substantial hardship, financial or otherwise.
Granting the relief would not harm the public good or undermine the ordinance’s purpose.

This is a deliberately high bar.⁸ The hardship has to tie to the land, not to personal finances or business plans. A variance also generally cannot authorize a use the ordinance prohibits, unless the local code specifically allows use variances.

Short version: if the table says SP, you need a special permit from the city council. If you can’t meet a dimensional rule, you need a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals. Different applications, different filing routes, different hearing calendars.

Applying, Fees, and the Hearing

Both applications start at the City Clerk’s office. A variance petition must identify the specific subsections you want varied, describe the land and buildings involved, and state the grounds for the appeal.⁷ A special permit application must include a site plan prepared under Chapter 17.17 and a list of all abutters, including those across the street, as they appear on the most recent tax list.

Filing fees are set by ordinance. An appeal to the Zoning Board of Appeals costs $180; a special permit application costs $400. Both exclude additional processing charges and the costs of the hearing itself, such as newspaper publication and mailed notices to abutters.⁹ Budget for those extras, plus a professional site plan or survey if your project needs one.

State law requires published notice in a local newspaper once in each of two consecutive weeks, with the first publication at least 14 days before the hearing, plus posting at City Hall and mailed notice to all parties in interest: the applicant, direct abutters, owners across any street, and abutters to abutters within 300 feet.¹⁰

For special permits, the city council must hold the hearing within 65 days of filing and take final action within 90 days after the hearing. If the council fails to act in that window, the special permit is deemed granted by default.

Come prepared. Boards see plenty of hardship arguments that are vague or based on personal inconvenience rather than a characteristic of the land, and those lose. A factual presentation tied to the exact statutory criteria is what moves the vote.

After You Win: The 20-Day Wait and Recording

A favorable vote is not the finish line. No variance or special permit takes effect until two things happen. First, 20 days must pass after the decision is filed with the City Clerk with no appeal filed in that window; this is the period for neighbors or other parties to challenge the decision in court.¹⁰

Second, once the 20 days pass cleanly, you have to record a copy of the decision at the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds, bearing the City Clerk’s certification that the appeal period passed without a filing or that any appeal was dismissed. Until that recording happens, the relief is not legally effective and you cannot pull a building permit on it.¹⁰

Special permits also carry a back-end deadline: if substantial construction or use has not begun within two years, the permit lapses unless you can show good cause.

Grandfathered (Nonconforming) Properties

When zoning rules change, properties that were legal before the change don’t automatically become illegal. Under Chapter 40A, Section 6, a zoning ordinance does not apply to structures or uses that were lawfully in existence before the ordinance was adopted or amended.¹¹

The protection has limits. You can continue the nonconforming use, but any expansion or alteration requires approval from the permit-granting authority, which has to find that the change will not be “substantially more detrimental” to the neighborhood than the existing nonconforming use.¹¹

Abandonment is the biggest risk. Massachusetts allows local ordinances to regulate nonconforming uses that have been discontinued for two years or more.¹¹ Stop using a grandfathered property for its nonconforming purpose, let the gap stretch past two years, and you may permanently lose the right to resume that use.

For undersized residential lots, Section 6 provides a specific safe harbor: a lot used for single-family or two-family housing that was recorded before the current size rules took effect and was not held in common ownership with adjacent land may still be buildable if it has at least 5,000 square feet and 50 feet of frontage.¹¹ Revere’s code adds restrictions on undersized lots, and the Zoning Board of Appeals generally cannot grant relief from those local provisions for lots that fall below the Table of Dimensional Controls minimum.⁵

Penalties for Zoning Violations

Revere’s building inspector enforces the zoning ordinance, including withholding building permits and denying licenses for uses that conflict with the code. Under state law, the maximum fine for a zoning violation is $300 per offense, and each day the violation continues counts as a separate offense.¹² That math adds up fast.

Beyond fines, the city or any aggrieved party can go to Superior Court or Land Court for an injunction to stop the violation. An injunction can force you to tear down unpermitted construction or cease an unauthorized use. If you believe a neighbor is violating the ordinance, you can file a written enforcement request with the building inspector, who must respond in writing within 14 days if declining to act.¹²

State and Federal Limits on the City’s Zoning Power

Revere’s zoning authority is broad but not absolute. Two outside rules come up often enough to flag.

The federal Fair Housing Act bars cities from using zoning to discriminate against people with disabilities. Revere cannot deny a permit for a group home based on the residents’ disabilities, impose special requirements on group homes that don’t apply to other residential uses, or refuse reasonable accommodations in zoning rules where needed to give disabled individuals equal access to housing.¹³ The city can decline an accommodation only if it would impose an undue financial or administrative burden or fundamentally alter the zoning scheme.

Revere is also one of 177 communities covered by Section 3A of the Zoning Act, the MBTA Communities Act. The law requires Revere to maintain at least one district of reasonable size where multifamily housing is permitted by right at a minimum density of 15 units per acre, within half a mile of a transit station.¹⁴ Noncompliant communities lose eligibility for several state funding programs, including the Housing Choice Initiative, the Local Capital Projects Fund, and MassWorks.

1
Mass.gov. Massachusetts Law About Zoning
2
City of Revere, MA. Chapter 17.12 Districts and Map
3
City of Revere. City of Revere Public GIS Website
4
City of Revere, MA. Chapter 17.16 Use Regulations
5
City of Revere, MA. Chapter 17.24 Dimensional Regulations
6
Mass.gov. Mass General Laws Chapter 40A Section 9
7
City of Revere, MA. Chapter 17.52 Board of Appeals – Appeals and Variances
8
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 40A Section 10
9
City of Revere, MA. Appendix A Fee Schedule
10
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 40A Section 11
11
Mass.gov. Mass General Laws Chapter 40A Section 6
12
General Court of Massachusetts. Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 40A Section 7
13
Department of Justice. Joint Statement of the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development
14
Mass.gov. Multi-Family Zoning Requirement for MBTA Communities