As the prospect of increased housing at Devens moves from dream to reality, the residents who live there deserve a say in the outcome. “On some level, we don’t get to decide our own fate,” as one Emerson Green homeowner remarked at last week’s Devens Committee meeting. Chapter 498, the legislation governing the area’s development, was written before there were any residents, she observed. “We’re not even mentioned in the documents that in some sense decide our future.”
What’s been striking in recent years has been a growing sense of community among those who have made Devens their home, not only among those living in the established neighborhoods of Walnut, Elm, Auman, and Bates streets, but also among those in the newer housing on Cavite Street and Adams Circle and in Emerson Green.
John Katter, who represents every neighborhood in Devens as a member of the Devens Jurisdiction Framework Committee, is fond of saying of his constituents, “No one has made a greater investment in the future of Devens.” They are the ones who will be most directly affected by increased housing and further commercial growth, and they want to have a say in its direction.
Perhaps it’s time to rethink Chapter 498 and offer the residents of Devens standing and a vote equal to that of the three towns who were part of the original 1993 agreement. How that might be accomplished is a matter for legal and legislative experts, but addressing residents’ concerns is a matter of fairness and their right to a say in their governance as citizens of Massachusetts.
“We would rather be at the table than having [future decisions] dictated to us,” Devens Committee Chair Laura Scott said to interim MassDevelopment CEO Dan O’Connell Tuesday.
We agree.