The Harvard-Devens Jurisdiction Committee is right about one thing: Time for planning is running out. If Paul Green’s timeline estimates are even roughly correct, the window for creating a proper plan for the future jurisdiction of Devens is already narrowing. (See our story on page 3.) July 1, 2033—the date MassDevelopment’s authority over Devens expires under state law—is not an abstraction. It is a hard statutory deadline, and the work required to prepare for it is formidable.
The case for urging Devens stakeholders to press ahead without MassDevelopment has a certain logic. The agency has shown little urgency. The towns and stakeholders represented on the Devens Jurisdiction Framework Committee have done the hard preliminary work of documenting their positions and concerns across 19 separate topic areas. Beginning at their next meeting, April 8, they will begin a search for common ground. Momentum exists. If the towns and other stakeholders can reach consensus among themselves, the argument goes, MassDevelopment will have little choice but to join a plan already broadly supported—and little standing before the Legislature to resist it.
But there are reasons for caution. Section 23 of Chapter 498 requires MassDevelopment’s signature on the final joint report to the governor and Legislature. A plan built without the agency’s participation, however well constructed, could face legal or political challenges at the moment it matters most. Alienating rather than pressuring MassDevelopment risks turning a difficult partner into an obstructive one.
There is also the sheer complexity of what lies ahead. Building genuine consensus among three towns, the Devens Enterprise Commission, Devens residents, and Devens businesses on questions as thorny as taxation, municipal services, open space, town lines, and regional governance is not a task that bends easily to political pressure or tight deadlines. Consulting services will be required, but without MassDevelopment the three towns lack the money to pay for them. The Super Town Meeting process—through which any agreed plan must eventually pass—requires months of public education and engagement in each community. And the whole enterprise, Green maintains, must be timed to land at the start of a two-year legislative session, not in the middle of one, to ensure adequate time for debate and passage.
The Harvard committee’s instinct to create urgency—through warrant articles, public votes, and a bias toward action—is understandable. Done well, this process could produce a durable settlement for one of the most unusual governance arrangements in Massachusetts history. Done hastily, or without all the required parties genuinely on board, it could simply postpone the reckoning.