ZBA continues 684 Boston Post Road auto repair case, orders December vehicle inventory

SUDBURY — December 8, 2025 — Sudbury ZBA gives 684 Boston Post Road auto shop four months and a Dec. 31 inventory deadline. The Zoning Board of Appeals voted 4-0 to continue Michael J. Griffin's special permit renewal until April 6 after Chair John Riordan counted "60 plus cars" on the property during a same-day site visit and Building Inspector Andrew Lewis testified the Sudbury Fire Department could not get apparatus around the building. Griffin's underlying permit, last renewed in 2009, has been lapsed since roughly 2011; Lewis issued a notice of violation Aug. 19. Griffin, who runs a Volvo specialty and restoration shop, blamed the gap on a decade as sole caregiver and a year of failed surgeries, and said he had already relocated 14 cars to Oxford and 20 to Middleborough. Member Jennifer Pincus pushed back that submitted photographs showed "major restoration projects and that's body work," beyond the "incidental body repairs" the 2009 permit allowed. The board also granted five-year chicken-permit renewals to the Phelps family at 20 Linden Road (10-bird cap) and to Don Byrne and Marilyn McDonald at 12 Trillium Way (six-bird cap), where the coop is known as "Cluckingham Palace."