LAKEVILLE — David Lodge is running for the five-year term position on the Planning Board that is currently held by chairman Mark Knox, who is up for re-election this year. 

Lodge ran for a position on the board last year, as a write-in. He has worked as an architect for 50 years, and is now “semi-retired,” he stated, and acknowledged that he has “a bit of a different outlook on development.” Though he didn’t plan on running again, he said, “people came to me and told me: ‘You ought to do this. You’re who we need.’” 

Lodge said that he is running because he wants to play a part in developing Lakeville, where he has lived for four years, more sustainably. “We should be developing so that we have as little impact on the environment as possible, both visually and ecologically,”  he said. 

“We can’t just chew up our prime land, as is being proposed by the Rocky Woods project.”

The Rocky Woods project is a development proposal of 200 housing units, 50 of which would be affordable, that would be constructed on an 188-acre plot of land off of Freetown Street.  

While Lodge is in favor of more affordable housing in Lakeville, he said that the Rocky Woods property “is the wrong piece of land for it.” 

“All of the high-density housing in Lakeville should be confined to the stretch of Main Street between Interstate 495 and the Star Liquor Market.’’

Commercial and industrial development need to be “limited to designated areas,” he said.

Lodge was one of the residents to voice his opposition at a previous Town Meeting to the proposal to construct two large warehouses on the old Lakeville Hospital property at 43 Main St.

A project like this doesn’t belong on Main Street, he said at the meeting, and added “put the industrial uses in industrial neighborhoods.” 

He pointed out that, “we have to be ready to accommodate projects like this, but they have to go in the right spot. Lakeville doesn’t have too many spots like that.” He referenced a stretch of land on Route 44 as an area that could be used for industrial purposes.

Overall, Lodge said his mission is “to grow Lakeville, but do it sustainably,” adding, “it’s a pretty rural town and that character needs to be preserved.”