On October 26, Westwood residents voted 594 to 76 at Special Town Meeting to approve a $39.98 million replacement for Fire Station 1 to be built on the former Deerfield School property. Because the project is paid for by raising taxes above the state’s Proposition 2½ limit, it also needed a second approval at the ballot box. On November 3, voters approved the debt exclusion, Question 10, 4,592 to 3,137.
That outcome looked unlikely a year ago. In 2025, the town asked residents to fund a $38.1 million station on the current High Street site, where the existing building dates to 1948. Town Meeting approved it in May, but voters rejected it at a special election in June, 54 percent to 46. The Select Board put the same question back on the ballot in September, and voters rejected it again, 56 percent to 44, with twice as many people turning out.
Opponents said they supported the fire department but could not support the price.
Instead of reworking the same design, the town started over. It formed a new working group, asked residents for input, and used $325,000 approved at the May 2026 Town Meeting to study three possible sites. The former Deerfield School came out ahead as the chosen venue because the town already owns it. By the town’s count, the process involved more than 70 public meetings. Every presentation, cost estimate, and site plan was posted at westwoodfs1.com for anyone who wanted to check the numbers.
The revised station is about 29,000 square feet with four bays, roughly 19 percent smaller than the 2025 design, but construction prices rose after 2025, so the total came down only about 4 percent, to $39.98 million. The bigger change is the financing. The town is covering $5.18 million from existing funds, which cuts borrowing by about 13 percent and drops the estimated cost for the average single-family homeowner to $343 a year, down from $372.
The need did not change while all of this played out. After last winter’s snow, engineers found two of the High Street station’s bays could not safely hold equipment. Fire operations were consolidated at Station 2 in Islington, and apparatus went under a temporary tent. Design on the new station begins this month, construction is expected to start in late 2027, and the building should open in 2029.
Westwood residents were asked for money twice and said no twice. The town listened, built a different plan with a lower tax bill attached, showed its work, and asked again.