THE SMALL HOUSE band from Brockton participated in Wakefield’s Porchfest, a townwide event held Saturday, Sept. 7. Shown at the mic is lead singer Taylor Mazzali. The band performed from 1 to 4 p.m. outside the Unitarian Universalist Church on Main Street. (Gail Lowe Photo)
By MARK SARDELLA
WAKEFIELD – Locally, 2024 will be remembered as the year of 40Bs, mandated multifamily zoning and bike lanes.
In January, the Zoning Board of Appeals got its first look at developer Scott Green’s proposal for a four-story, 32-unit 40B affordable housing project at 32 Nahant St. Green’s project and another, much larger 40B project at 119 Nahant St. would dominate ZBA meetings for the entirety of 2024. The board and neighbors insisted that both projects were too large and inappropriate for the narrow, winding residential street.
Over the course of a year’s worth of hearings, both developers would agree to reduce the size of their respective projects, but not nearly enough to satisfy the ZBA or the neighbors. The ZBA closed the hearings in December and will render a decision on each project at its first meeting in 2025.
Another zoning issue kicked into high gear in early 2024. The local response to the state’s MBTA multifamily zoning mandate began to take shape as the Planning Board presented its compliance model at a series of public hearings last winter.
Opponents objected that the plan went well beyond the state requirements in terms of geographical area and units allowed. When it became evident that it would not pass at the spring Annual Town Meeting, the Planning Board made a switch on the floor of Town Meeting and offered a previously unseen minimum compliance plan. Voters rejected that plan and another minimum compliance plan from a citizens’ petition, sending the town back to the drawing board.
The Town Council then formed its own subcommittee to create a different compliance model focused less on residential areas and more on commercial and already developed districts. That plan passed at the fall town meeting just ahead of the state’s Dec. 31 compliance deadline.
Bike lanes were another hot topic in 2024.
In March, the Town Council voted 5-2 to approve the final Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan, a policy that would begin to take concrete form in April as work began on the new, wider sidewalk on North Avenue.
Then in June, the Town Council voted 4-3 to approve a North Avenue redesign that included a northbound bicycle lane complete with flex posts, reducing the width of the automobile travel lanes down to 11 feet in each direction. The appearance of the flex posts late in 2024 created a social media firestorm before they were recently removed for the winter.
But it wasn’t all bike lanes, 40Bs and zoning in 2024. Here’s a month-by-month roundup of some of the other stories we covered this year.
February
- Work crews began preparing the 200 Quannapowitt Parkway site for Cabot Cabot & Forbes new 445-unit residential complex at the head of the Lake.
- Local teachers seeking a new contract picketed in front of the Galvin Middle School.
March
- The Town Council approved the FY2025 Fire Department and DPW budgets.
- The Town marked the 50th anniversary of a devastating downtown fire that claimed the life of Fire Lt. Robert Sullivan with a moving ceremony attended by Lt. Sullivan’s son, current Fire Chief Michael Sullivan.
April
- Site preparation began for the new Wakefield Memorial High School.
- Former selectman John Carney and longtime Finance Committee member Doug Butler won election to the Town Council.
May
- Annual Town Meeting approved a new self-storage district but rejected an article that would have created a district for legal cannabis sales.
- Town meeting also nixed an anti-Israel article sponsored by a citizens’ petition.
- Longtime Health Department official Catherine Dhingra left for a position in Medford.
- After 200 years, the Unitarian Universalist Church announced that it was closing its doors.
- Mike McLane was chosen by his fellow Town Councilors as board chairman.
June
- The Wakefield Memorial High School Class of 2024 graduated on June 1 under sunny skies.
July
- The Wakefield Independence Day Committee and the West Side Social Club once again gave the town a Fourth of July celebration to remember.
- Cabot Cabot & Forbes officially broke ground on its 200 Quannapowitt Avenue development.
August
- The Attorney General, based on a complaint filed by Scot McCauley, ruled that the Planning Board violated the Open Meeting Law when it deliberated outside of posted public meetings in creating its minimum compliance MBTA multifamily zoning plan.
September
- Michael Murphy was named as Director of Health, Athletics and Wellness for Wakefield Public Schools.
- Wakefield’s first Porchfest was an unqualified success, despite an incident where a woman drove a Subaru through a Greenwood neighborhood brandishing a BB gun. The woman was arrested.
October
- The Town Council voted to send the new MBTA multifamily zoning plan created by the board’s 40A Subcommittee to the Planning Board for a public hearing.
- Brush fires in Breakheart and other wooded areas began to spark up after an extended drought.
November
- The Fire Department continued to battle brush fires in Breakheart Reservation.
- Wakefield’s Veterans Day ceremony featured U.S Navy Commander Shelby Nikitin, a 2000 graduate of Wakefield Memorial High School.
- After an extended debate, Town Meeting approved the Town Council’s MBTA multifamily zoning plan.
- A fire at a multifamily home on Wakefield Avenue displaced 12 residents.
- Another fire displaced a Pleasant Street family.
- The Warrior football team defeated Melrose 20-14 in the annual Thanksgiving Day tilt.
December
- A local woman died in a Water Street house fire.
- On December 14, Santa Claus came to town thanks to the Wakefield Lions Club.
- Scores of residents participated in the Wreaths Across America event at Forest Glade Cemetery, laying more than 400 wreaths on the graves of veterans.
- The new Wakefield Memorial High School marked a project milestone with a “topping off ceremony.”
