When voters gather for Special Town Meeting at the Bromfield School later this month, they will be handed two warrants: one for a zoning change at Devens that must be approved by a majority of attendees at Ayer, Harvard, and Shirley town meetings held at the same date and time, and a second containing eight articles that pertain to Harvard alone.
At the selectmen’s meeting this week, the four selectmen present discussed and then voted unanimously to approve both warrants. The two meetings will be held back to back on Monday, Oct. 24, in Cronin Auditorium. The first will begin at 7 p.m. to coincide with simultaneous town meetings in Ayer and Shirley, an event known as a Super Town Meeting. The second meeting to deal with the Harvard-only matters is scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m., after the “Super” has adjourned.
The last Super Town Meeting was held in June 2015. At that meeting, Ayer, Shirley, and Harvard approved three of the four articles on the warrant, but the 200 voters who attended the Harvard meeting rejected the fourth, which was an earlier version of this year’s sole warrant article.
This year, MassDevelopment is asking the towns to approve a revised version of that article, which seeks to rezone residential land near Grant Road for industrial use. The change would create a parcel of approximately 40 acres, a size that would allow MassDevelopment to court biopharmaceutical companies seeking a site in Massachusetts. According to Devens Senior Vice President Thatcher Kezer, such a site would be one of two in the state, and its availability would allow the agency to respond quickly to future opportunities. One such company, Bristol-Myers Squibb, has already established—and is currently expanding—a manufacturing facility at the former military base.
Thus far, there appears to be no opposition in Harvard to the proposal. MassDevelopment officials have appeared more than once before the Planning Board and the selectmen to explain their revisions, and while neither board has voted to endorse the zoning change, members have said they are pleased with the changes made to its language and map. More information about the Devens article, including maps, can be found at www.courbanize.com/projects/devens-2016/information.
Eight articles for Harvard
Once Harvard’s meeting to decide the Devens article has adjourned, Town Moderator Bob Eubank will gavel Harvard’s own Special Town Meeting to order. Attendees will be asked to decide the fate of eight articles, including one that would enable the Broadband Committee to investigate the feasibility of a town-owned fiber-optic communications network and an amendment to the town’s bylaws to allow the zoning of land adjacent to Hildreth House for the development of senior housing. Other articles would pay for the purchase of conservation land at Horse Meadows Knoll on Sherry Road; appropriate money from town funds to defray expenses not included in the 2017 budget approved by the 2016 Annual Town Meeting; and add an alternate member to the board of the Council on Aging. For the complete list of Special Town Meeting articles, see sidebar (right).
The Press will provide additional analysis of the Devens and Harvard town meeting articles in its next two issues. The Planning Board will hold a second public hearing the evening of Oct. 18 on its proposals for a commercial district sidewalks bylaw and the Hildreth land overlay district. The final wording of Articles 4 and 5 will be voted at that time and read when the measures are placed before voters on Oct. 24.
Meantime, Paul Green of the Harvard League of Women Voters announced at the Tuesday selectmen’s meeting that the league would host an information session for Harvard voters on Monday, Oct. 17, at 7:30 p.m. in Volunteers Hall at the Harvard Public Library. The first half of the meeting will be devoted to the Devens zoning article. The second half will cover the eight articles of the Harvard Special Town Meeting. The League is inviting proponents of the articles to give short presentations, after which audience members will be able to ask questions. Green said that the session will end by 9 p.m.
Cable access remains a problem
Keeping meetings of the selectmen and other town forums widely public remains a problem. Volunteers Hall no longer has the equipment needed to broadcast meetings on cable, such as next week’s League session. Harvard Cable TV did broadcast Tuesday’s Town Hall meeting of the selectmen, but those who tried to watch at home reported there was no sound.
