At a Jan. 15 Joint Boards of Selectmen (JBOS) discussion on “next steps in the regionalization of Devens,” Chairman Leo Blair of Harvard put forward what he referred to as “an idea, not a proposal, not a plan, strictly an idea.”
Blair said that the “best possible beginning place is to make sure that the DREZ [Devens Regional Enterprise Zone] stays the DREZ,” suggesting that he would look at Devens as “an overlay district that transcends boundaries of towns” and have “the three towns and residents work with that as an assumption.”
Blair’s idea is to have current zoning of Devens stay in place and allow MassDevelopment to finish with its redevelopment projects. But within the overlay district, Blair said, “we share services: DPW, fire, police, recreation, etc.” Blair’s idea would give residents of Devens “essentially school choice,” and it would allow “each town to decide how much they can handle in terms of school choice students.”
The idea calls for creation of a committee, not unlike the JBOS, Blair said, which would come into existence soon. The initial job of the committee would be financial management: receive the funds, pay the bills, and fix the roads.
“MassDevelopment and the DEC [Devens Enterprise Commission] would continue development activities during a transition of six to eight years,” Blair suggested.
The committee would be elected from Shirley, Ayer, and Harvard and would “serve essentially as the board of selectmen” but would be limited in scope because of MassDevelopment’s development activities in the enterprise zone.
Blair suggested that the current housing cap—282 residential units, according to Chapter 498—would go away and housing would expand as determined by Devens growth requirements.
“School options would be revisited and change as population changes,” Blair said. His idea included “a transition period in which there would be a premium of some amount to compensate the towns for education costs.”
Blair said he sees that “the benefit of this idea is that the towns are outside of the process right now, and being in the process would help us understand how to do this.” He would “abandon the idea of partitions; taking apart the engine is not a good idea.”
“There could be substantial benefits to the towns in cooperating with Devens, learning from Devens,” Blair said. “Each year we don’t cooperate costs all of towns more money, keeps costs of running Devens high, and keeps all of us from progressing.”
Blair’s idea will be put into written form and discussed at a future JBOS meeting.
