By MARK SARDELLA
WAKEFIELD — The planned expansion and upgrade of the Public Safety Building cleared another hurdle this week as the necessary Special Permits were obtained from the Zoning Board of Appeals.
Working pro bono as a special municipal employee, attorney Brian McGrail represented the town before the Zoning Board of Appeals to request the needed Special Permits for the planned renovation and expansion of the Police Department side of the Public Safety Building. The project requires relief from the dimensional regulations of the Zoning Bylaw as well as relief from the requirements for off-street parking.
Permanent Building Committee chairman Joseph Bertrand and Janet Slemenda from HKT Architects reviewed the needs driving the project and the ways that the design will address those needs.
In June of 2020, Town Meeting approved $9.6 million for the project. An additional $2.5 million was appropriated at last fall’s Regular Town Meeting. A feasibility study found that the Police Department is facing serious space issues and other limitations in its current space and is approaching critical points with technology, storage and maintenance.
The project includes a three-story build-out on the police side of the building facing Union Street, a new main entryway as well as an expansion of the sallyport area. The new lobby will feature three points of service, Slemenda explained. The Fire Department will be on the right, police dispatch in the center and the police records office on the left. The design also calls for significant reorganization of space and offices on all three floors on the police side of the building. The project adds 3,676 square feet of space to the building.
McGrail explained that the building is in the Municipal Overly District, which was created by Annual Town Meeting in 2000. That is not relevant to the allowed use, he said, because public safety is an allowed use in all zoning districts, including residential.
But it becomes relevant when it comes to the dimensional regulations. McGrail explained that under the bylaw the dimensional regulations applicable to a lot of land in the Municipal District are the same as the dimensional regulations that apply to the surrounding zoning district. He noted that the Public Safety Building is split between two underlying districts: the Business District and the General Residence District. In such cases, the dimensional regulations of the least-restrictive adjacent zoning district apply.
That means that the dimensional regulations of the Business District apply to the Public Safety Building, McGrail explained.
The other zoning relief requested, McGrail noted, was from the requirements related to parking. He said that 152 off-street parking spaces would be required, although he pointed out that that number was largely driven by the meeting room in the Public Safety Building.
The rebuilt Public Safety Building will have 28 parking spaces, he said – 19 in the garage, two in the sallyport and seven surface parking spaces. (The are also a number of time-limited spaces on the Union Street side of the building that are assigned to the building.)
McGrail said that under the Zoning Bylaw, both the dimensional relief and the parking relief can be accomplished by Special Permits granted by the Zoning Board of Appeals.
ZBA Chairman David Hatfield noted that the board had received letters from various town boards weighing in on the Public Safety Building project, McGrail observed that since all boards required to respond had been heard from, the ZBA was clear to move ahead with a decision.
Board of Appeals member Tom Lucey made separate motions to grant the Special Permits requested for the dimensional and parking relief. The board also made the required findings associated with those Special Permits.