Weston Fire Station Group Drops Three Protected Parcels, Sets August Scoring Deadline

WESTON — July 15, 2024 — Weston's Fire Station Working Group removed three Article 97-protected parcels from its site evaluation matrix and set an August 5 deadline for individual member scoring ahead of the group's August 12 meeting. The group, working with consultants from Tecton, spent more than two hours scoring roughly a dozen candidate center-station parcels on criteria including program support, response-time impact, community consensus, and construction cost, using a one-to-five scale. Members established approximately two usable acres as the minimum threshold for a new "superstation" capable of consolidating the town's center and south fire operations, effectively marking the existing center station and the 1.28-acre bypass-split parcel as non-starters for a primary facility. The country school fields and Lampson Park drew the strongest community-opposition scores — one member predicted "pitchforks" over the fields — while St. Peter's and the 175–185 Boston Post Road parcels were rated as marginal but potentially workable at roughly 1.8 and 1.43 acres respectively. A small subgroup of consultants and knowledgeable members was tasked with scoring the three cost-related criteria, which the full group acknowledged required professional judgment beyond most members' expertise.