Whitman Zoning Board Continues Car Wash Hearing, Approves Temple Street Variance

WHITMAN -- October 27, 2025, Whitman's Zoning Board of Appeals continued a car wash hearing and approved a residential variance at its October 27 meeting. The board voted 5-0 to continue a petition by Northeastern Savings Bank and Paint 10 Car Wash to modify a 2012 special permit at 342 Bedford Street, where the bank proposes to split its parcel and build an express tunnel car wash on the new lot; the hearing was continued to November 17 after residents of the adjacent Toll House Village condominiums raised repeated safety concerns about the already-congested Routes 14 and 18 intersection, with one resident warning, "I'm relying on you guys on the board to protect us." Car wash representative Jason Rice said peak-hour volume is projected at 78 vehicle trips, below the threshold requiring a full DOT traffic study. In a separate 5-0 vote, the board granted a use variance allowing a roughly 1,900-square-foot, three-bedroom single-family house on a highway-business-zoned lot at 306 Temple Street, a revised plan replacing a duplex the board had rejected three weeks earlier, with a required six-foot stockade fence along the Churchill Park Condominium boundary.