Leominster, MA Building Setbacks & Zoning: Setback Rules (2026)

Every principal building in Leominster has to meet the yard setbacks listed for its zoning district in Section 22-40's Table of Dimensional Regulations, and Section 22-36.1 makes that connection explicit by requiring that a building be located so as to comply with the requirements for height and yard setbacks set out in subsection 22-40.3. The table sets a different minimum for each district rather than one citywide number. In the Residence A (RA) district, the city's principal single-family district, the minimums are fifteen feet for the side yard, twenty feet for the front yard, and thirty feet for the rear yard, on a minimum half-acre lot with eighty feet of frontage. The rural residential (RR) district, which is not sewered, requires a larger twenty-foot side yard, thirty-foot front yard and forty-foot rear yard on a full acre. Denser districts shrink the numbers: the Residence B (RB) district, which allows two-family dwellings, drops to a ten-foot side yard, fifteen-foot front yard and twenty-foot rear yard.

Section 22-36 also fills in how the table is applied at the edges. No lot may be reduced or reshaped so that an existing building falls out of compliance with the district's setback figures, except when land is taken or conveyed for a public purpose, and a building need not sit further back from the street than the average setback of the neighboring principal buildings on either side. Cornices and eaves are allowed to project up to eighteen inches into a required yard, and uncovered steps, unroofed porches and window sills may also extend into required yard space without violating the setback.