With super town meeting tentatively booked for next month, it’s time the Board of Selectmen and other town boards weigh in on proposed zoning and bylaw changes to the Devens zone that would allow Trinity Financial to redevelop the old military housing at Vicksburg Square into 246 units of mostly low-income rental apartments (see story).
There certainly has been enough time to consider the issue. Trinity introduced its plan at visioning sessions in May 2011. The Selectmen-appointed Devens Economic Analysis Team turned in a report on Vicksburg Square in September. Trinity has held several public meetings, which members of the Board of Selectmen have attended. What’s left to ask?
A final (and Selectmen-sanctioned) public hearing in Harvard is scheduled for Feb. 21. We hope that the Selectmen will come away from this meeting with all the information they need to make a recommendation to Town Meeting voters either for or against the proposal.
Ultimately, of course, the responsibility falls to those who attend Town Meeting to cast well-considered votes, but as the town’s top elected officials, and presumably experts on the needs of the town, Selectmen are in a unique position to guide and inform those votes.
The Vicksburg Square development has the potential to reshape the region with an infusion of several hundred people, some of them children who would attend Harvard’s schools. The questions confronting voters, then, are, would this be a good thing for Harvard? Does it fit with the town’s long-term goals? Would it be best to act now, or is it conceivable that something better will come along? Voters also have to weigh the responsibility the town has, if any, to Devens and the people who live there.
Having done their homework, Selectmen should now be prepared to present to voters their answers to those questions.
And while Selectmen are doing that, it would also be helpful if the other boards in town at least commented on the proposal from their perspectives: schools, finance, conservation, historic preservation, and so on. This proposal deserves a fair hearing from everyone in town government.
