MassDevelopment’s proposals for new senior residential housing in Shirley and for setting aside more land for commercial development got the greatest attention from attendees at a special hearing Tuesday night in the town library. But Vicksburg Square and dissatisfaction with MassDevelopment’s outreach were also on their minds.
“Why not come to the town and ask what we want, rather than say, ‘Here are four ideas we came up with that are fairly well thought out, [and asking] what do you think of them?’”
—Ken Swanton, selectman
Attendance was sparse, with a baker’s dozen of town board members plus one Harvard and one Devens resident attending. The two-hour meeting was moderated by Chairman Stu Sklar of the selectmen and Planning Board Chairwoman Kara Minar.
Ed Starzec, MassDevelopment’s real estate manager, laid out the rationale for four zoning changes the agency wants to make within the Devens Regional Enterprise Zone (DREZ), two-thirds of which lies on land that was historically part of Harvard. But it was the first and last of these that drew the most questions, and some attendees wanted to shift the focus to Vicksburg Square and voice their dissatisfaction with MassDevelopment’s outreach to the towns that abut Devens.
“I feel like this [hearing] is kinda late,” said Selectman Ken Swanton. “I feel like no one’s ever asked the question, ‘Hey, Harvard, what do you want?’”
Senior housing and more
The four new zoning rules sought by MassDevelopment would make the following changes:
- Allow construction of up to 120 units of age-restricted senior housing—for individuals 62 and older—in downtown Shirley, on land between its schools and the Nashua River;
- Create a new health-care district in the same area to allow doctors’ offices and other medical facilities to locate near the proposed senior housing;
- “Swap” zones to allow residential redevelopment in the former Adams Circle neighborhood and to protect Rogers Field, a popular recreational area, as well as other land from commercial development;
- Zone two parcels at the southern end of the Grant Road housing development for office, light industrial, and research establishments, thereby creating a larger parcel with greater commercial appeal.
Details of all four proposals are available at a MassDevelopment website devoted to the topic, and the meeting itself will shortly be available on YouTube at the Harvard Cable TV web page.
Why not Vicksburg Square?
Selectwoman Lucy Wallace wanted to know why MassDevelopment was looking to locate senior housing in Shirley but not considering Vicksburg Square, a four-building complex in the heart of the former Army base.
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Starzec responded that renovating the Vicksburg Square site was too expensive for MassDevelopment, given the need to remove asbestos and PCBs. The Shirley site is “clean and good to go,” he added.
Selectman Ron Ricci asked if this meant there was no plan for Vicksburg Square. Not at all, replied Starzec. The towns had rejected previous housing proposals put forward by MassDevelopment, but the agency might try again. At the moment, he said, an unnamed educational institution had expressed interest in the buildings.
Vicksburg Square is not the only location getting a closer look. Richard Henderson, MassDevelopment executive vice president for real estate, revealed that a “major” international bio-pharmaceutical company was looking for a 35- to 50-acre site and had shown interest in constructing a complex at Devens. “It’s an international competition,” he said. “We’re up against other states [and] other countries.” If it chose to site at Devens, the facility would bring 500 or more jobs to the area, according to Starzec.
The problem is that Devens has run out of 40- to 50-acre lots, Starzec said. The 20-acre lots that remain are too small for many enterprises, hence the desire to use the two parcels described in the fourth proposal to assemble a sufficiently large parcel to meet that need, even though that might impact how the Grant Road residential area is built.
A loss of open space
“This one bothers me a lot,” said Wallace. She noted that the proposed 120-unit housing development on Grant Road would be built on 35 acres. “It’s very dense,” she said. Residents living nearby had been told that the high density was good because it preserved open space. But the new zoning would remove open space. Five hundred jobs was “pretty dense” and right next to the Nashua River, “a river I care a lot about,” said Wallace, a past director of the Nashua River Watershed Association.
Protecting the river, Starzec answered, was a matter of good engineering, and he said that industrial activity on the DREZ was strictly regulated by the Devens Enterprise Commission. “If we did think the development was too close” to Grant Road housing, the area has “plenty of land” and “some of the units could be moved north,” he said.
The emotional highlight of the evening came at the end of the hearing, with Selectman Swanton’s appeal for better collaboration.
Starzec said he had been making presentations to town boards and other groups since the summer. “I’ve been tooth and nail trying to present these changes to the communities,” he said. “I’m doing my very best to communicate. Some people don’t want to hear about this at all.”
What do you want?
Swanton said he was trying to make a different point. “Why not come to the town and ask what we want, rather than say, ‘Here are four ideas we came up with that are fairly well thought out, [and asking] what do you think of them?’ Why not start with a different approach, which is, ‘What do you want?’”
MassDevelopment’s Henderson noted that the two Shirley proposals had been put forward by that town’s economic development committee. “The whole proposal came from the town of Shirley,” he said. “Shirley approached us; we did not approach them … The town of Shirley seems to very much want this to happen.”
Starzec responded with a question of his own, one that Harvard has struggled to answer for years: “What do you want?” he asked. “We’re listening.”
Tuesday’s hearing was the first of four scheduled by MassDevelopment, one for each of the towns that abut Devens and one for Devens residents. Once MassDevelopment has heard from all of the area stakeholders, it will decide whether to ask Ayer, Shirley, and Harvard to convene a Super Town Meeting to approve the changes it has proposed.
