Newton, MA Parking Rules: Commercial & Oversized Vehicles (2026)

A defines a regulated commercial vehicle as any vehicle, conveyance or piece of mechanized equipment parked in a residence district that furthers a business, trade, profession or employment, and meets any one of several triggers: it transports persons, luggage, animals or materials for a fee; its length exceeds 18 feet; its width exceeds 7 feet; it has a mechanized dumping capability; or it carries or stores a plow blade or plow blade frame. Once a vehicle is captured by that definition, Sec. B's Standards apply: in a residence district it cannot exceed 18 feet in length or 7 feet in width, it cannot carry more than 4 square feet of advertising on any one side, and it cannot be stored between the principal building's front line and the street line, or in a side or rear setback, unless it is inside a garage or other enclosure.

Practically, that means any commercial vehicle already over the 18-foot/7-foot threshold, such as a full-size box truck or dump truck, cannot be parked in a Newton residence district at all, while smaller marked pickups and vans must be tucked into a garage or set back well off the street-facing yard rather than left in the open driveway overnight. The ordinance traces to Ord. No. V-288, adopted March 20, 2000, and sits immediately before the home-business rules in Article 6's accessory-use section.