by John Osborn ·
Saturday, July 13, 2024
Updated 10 p.m., July 15, 2024
State senators finished work on Gov. Maura Healey’s economic development bill late Thursday and returned it to the House of Representatives. Among its amendments: a change in the makeup of the working group tasked to come up with a plan for more housing at Devens.
Like the House version of the bill, the Senate version eliminates caps on both commercial and residential development in the former U.S. Army base, and calls for the convening of a working group within 30 days of the bill’s enactment.
But unlike the House version, the Senate version adds the Devens Enterprise Commission, the community’s permitting agency, to the working group—and removes the Devens Committee, the group elected by residents to advise MassDevelopment, the state agency that provides municipal services to Devens businesses and residents.
If the Senate’s version becomes law, the reconceived housing working group will include representatives of MassDevelopment, the DEC, and the towns of Ayer, Harvard, and Shirley, as well as the secretaries of economic development, and of housing and liveable communities—but no elected resident representatives.
Other portions of the bill that relate to Devens, however, are unchanged, including its insistence that new housing conform to the Devens bylaws and Reuse Plan.
The amended bill passed unanimously, 40-0 and now goes to a conference committee where differences between the House and Senate versions will be resolved. Sen. Jamie Eldridge, who represents Harvard and Ayer and the Devens residents living within their historical boundaries, and Sen. John Cronin, who represents Shirley and its Devens residents, both voted in favor.
The Press asked Cronin, Eldridge, and Laura Scott, chair of the Devens Committee, for comment, but they had yet to respond by noon Saturday as this story was being prepared.
Co-chair of the Devens Jurisdiction Framework Committee Victor Normand said in a Friday afternoon phone call that he thought the Senate’s change aligned with Chapter 498, the state law that created Devens, which assigns authority for changes in zoning to the three towns and MassDevelopment. Devens residents have the right to vote in the town meetings and elections of Ayer, Harvard, and Shirley, but have no direct say in zoning.
Both the House and Senate versions of the economic development bill would require the Devens housing working group to evaluate whether up to 400 units of housing could be built in the Innovation and Technology District that surrounds Rogers Field and includes the former Army barracks at Vicksburg Square. Representatives of the three towns on the Devens framework committee have already said they would support more housing there.
But at Thursday’s Senate session Cronin called for more immediate action, offering an amendment whose passage would immediately rezone Vicksburg Square for up to 400 units of housing, bypassing the Super Town Meeting of Ayer, Harvard, and Shirley that Chapter 498 requires.
Cronin withdrew the amendment, but in an email to the Press Friday voiced his disappointment. “I am frustrated and disappointed that Vicksburg Square is going to sit and fall into further disrepair for the foreseeable future in the midst of a Housing crisis,” he said. “There are billions of dollars of state subsidies which will flow to other regions of the state that could have been leveraged to build much needed housing and rehabilitate the Innovation and Technology District to productive use. Letting Vicksburg Square continue to rot is a missed opportunity that I cannot defend.”
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.