A key part of the decision about Devens disposition revolves around the amount of housing that Devens would bring to Harvard. The JBOS discussion of Oct. 9 focused on the plans announced by MassDevelopment to seek proposals for 300 to 500 houses in Vicksburg Square. And there could be more state-financed housing in the future.
The ultimate amount and timing of housing on Devens adds a significant complication to the disposition decision for Harvard voters. It introduces a substantial amount of financial uncertainty, and therefore risk to Harvard, if the decision is to take back governance of the Devens community.
It is all in the timing of the cash flows. There will be more students coming into the school system, bringing less revenue per student. The average price of Devens homes was projected in the [scenario] 2B analysis to be $400,000 vs. $600,000 for Harvard. This will present an immediate, negative impact on the school budget.
On the positive side, there would be new tax revenues coming from the businesses on Devens. Many of these businesses come to Devens because they are given a tax holiday for some period of time. So, it will be well into the future before the full impact of these positive cash flows would be felt.
Finally, the new homes and businesses will require additional capital outlays for the infrastructure to support them, including new school construction. Accompanying these expenditures will be major increases in ongoing operations costs (public safety, DPW, etc.) to support the residential and commercial developments.
Complicating this financial analysis are the substantial uncertainties in the size and timing of all of these estimates. These uncertainties, and the risk that they bring to the conclusions presented, will need to be clearly conveyed to the voters. There are financial analysis techniques that can be employed to accomplish this objective, and hopefully they will be used. The end result will be a very difficult decision by the voters on whether they want to assume the risks defined by these analyses, whatever the conclusions may be.
Anthony J. Marolda
Jacob Gates Road
