The Devens Dilemma Surfaces Again | Discussions on creating a town are moving forward
Two years ago, Ayer and Harvard voters blocked a plan that would have transformed the former military base of Devens into its own town.
Now, representatives of those towns, as well as Shirley, the third community that lends land to the Devens Regional Enterprise Zone, say they are getting close to finding a solution to the question of what will become of the area that has become a hot spot in the Massachusetts business world.
Resolution Resolve
The Joint Board of Selectmen, which is made up of representatives from Devens and its three neighbors, voted a few months ago that it would try to put a resolution on the disposition of Devens before voters within 120 days of the last town meeting held in the area this year. Peter Warren, a member of the Harvard Board of Selectmen, said he hopes that will mean a vote this fall.
The proposal wouldn’t necessarily include making Devens a town, but that seems like one of the most likely outcomes of the board’s discussions. More details may be hammered out at its next meeting on Jan. 8.
What the future of Devens almost certainly won’t hold, according to both Warren and Phil Crosby, who represents local residents as a member of the Devens Citizens Advisory Committee, is a solitary existence. Crosby said recent meetings of the Joint Board have taken on a friendlier tone than in past years. He said he expects local residents will vote to turn Devens into a town, while also creating systems for the four communities to share services like public works, police and fire.
“When you say ‘Is Devens going to be a town?’ you have to think about it in terms of where we’re going to be headed with the four communities really creating a mechanism to work together,” he said.
Bring On The Residents
One glaring difference between Devens and the state’s other 351 communities is the absence of people. When the state first created the enterprise zone it capped the number of housing units there at 282, and that cap still holds today.
In fact, according to Meg Delorier, Devens spokeswoman for MassDevelopment, which oversees the area, only 106 units have been developed so far.
That’s likely to change soon. Crosby said he expects that the ban will be lifted as part of the plan to make Devens a town.
The area’s housing stock could get a boost even before that. MassDevelopment recently released a request for proposals to redevelop Vicksburg Square, the former U.S. Army base quarters at Fort Devens. Delorier said the agency has already received several unsolicited proposals to build housing at the site, with plans ranging from 300 to 500 units.
She said such plans would be possible with the help of two legislative votes, one to change the area’s zoning and another to circumvent the housing cap.
Delorier said it’s unlikely that MassDevelopment will receive any proposals to build “innovation and technology” businesses in the square, which is what the current zoning calls for.
“I think everybody is figuring at this point that it will be residential, or potentially mixed-use,” she said.
Crosby said more housing would be welcome in the community. Despite the housing bust elsewhere, he said, people are moving to the area for jobs at companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb and Evergreen Solar, and they shouldn’t have to commute 20 minutes to homes in other communities.
“All these things haven’t been discussed in detail,” he said, “But in principal we’ve been talking about that.”
The End Of Exceptionality?
As Devens moves toward becoming a normal town, it may raise questions for some about one of the things that makes the area uniquely appealing to businesses. Many executives and developers who have sited facilities in the enterprise zone rave about the permitting process.
The Devens Enterprise Commission grants the permits that planning and zoning boards take care of in other communities, and it promises developers an answer to their requests within 75 days.
“It’s like night and day,” said Robert Walker, owner of Ryan Development LLC in Westford, which developed the area known as downtown Devens and is currently proposing a new Hilton Garden Inn there.
“The process that you go through at Devens at the Devens Enterprise Commission is streamlined to the point where it makes it economically feasible to do development out there.”
Walker, along with Crosby and others following the discussions of Devens’ fate, says he doubts anyone in town, even newcomers, would want to get rid of the accelerated permitting, which has proved very successful in attracting businesses. But local authorities also say some things about the process would probably change.
Peter Lowitt, land use director for the DEC, said he expects the current permitting process to stay about the same going forward.
But Walker said he can certainly imagine a scenario where Devens becomes more like other towns where he works, with public opinion pushing officials to reject proposals that fall within the law.
“People are people, and there’s certainly an opportunity to screw up a good thing,” he said. “Anything’s possible. I’d hate to see that happen though.”
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