Somerville, MA Animal Ordinances: Veterinary Clinic Zoning (2026)

Table 3.1.16 of the Somerville Zoning Ordinance classifies Veterinarian as a Commercial Services use inside the Neighborhood Residence (NR) district. The first column of the table, governing new construction, lists Veterinarian as "N": not permitted. The second column, governing the adaptive reuse of a commercial building type built before the Ordinance's adoption, lists Veterinarian as "SP": allowed only with a Special Permit.

Section 3.1.16.b sets the conditions for that reuse. Business operations at any adaptively reused commercial building, including a veterinary use, are limited to the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. In addition to the general Special Permit review criteria in Section 15.2.1.e, the review board must make findings on four factors specific to a Veterinarian or Health Care Services use before it can approve or deny the permit: the compatibility of the use with the level of activity on surrounding properties, the existing concentration of the same use category within the neighborhood, the availability of the same services within the neighborhood, and the availability of comparable commercial spaces within the neighborhood.

Because a veterinary use cannot be built new in the NR district and can only occupy a qualifying pre-Ordinance commercial building through this Special Permit pathway, veterinary clinics in Somerville's residential neighborhoods operate under this adaptive-reuse track rather than as of-right businesses, and each application is decided case by case on the four criteria above.