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Council approves temporary Station 4 at Henshaw Street with site-plan condition
Summary
The Woburn City Council granted a special permit for a temporary fire station at 2 Henshaw Street after the council and fire department agreed to meet with neighbors and to use a site plan of record as a condition of the permit.
The Woburn City Council on April 15 approved a special permit allowing the Fire Department to operate a temporary Station 4 at 2 Henshaw Street while the East Woburn station is demolished and rebuilt.
The permit was approved with one formal condition: the site plan of record (the lease and layout described to the council and dated March 11, per the planning director's memo) must be memorialized and attached to the special-permit decision. Councilor Dimas moved the condition and the council voted in favor.
The city's planning director, John Cashel, was listed in the file as the source of the project communications. The Fire Department said the temporary location is meant to keep an engine in-district during the 18-month reconstruction of Station 4 and to limit response-time impacts. The department said private property owner Cummings would perform the interior upfitting and that the target date to occupy the temporary site was "sometime around June 15." The speaker identified in the record as the Fire chief told the council the site was previously used by a private ambulance company and that the space required only modest modification to house apparatus and crews.
Councilors and staff agreed to hold one or more neighborhood meetings before the station begins operations; the fire chief and deputy will attend to describe operations and to hear residents' concerns. Council members discussed the condition that the site plan be memorialized on the permit so the council and neighbors would have a clear plan of record to enforce.
President Dillon asked about road conditions near Henshaw and Erie Street; the Fire Department indicated the city will determine whether repaving or other repairs should proceed this spring or fall to limit noise and disruption while the temporary station operates in the neighborhood.
The council's vote to grant the special permit was recorded at the meeting with the motion and second called on the record and the chair announcing, "All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?" The chair then stated the motion passed.
The decision directs the permit clerk to include the site plan of record with the permit and notes that the council and staff will follow up on neighborhood meetings and on street maintenance near the temporary site.
