At its Sept. 18 meeting the Joint Boards of Selectmen, representing Ayer, Harvard, and Shirley, tried to determine the best way to forecast housing growth at the former Army land on Devens, a forecast that will be a significant factor in determining final disposition scenarios.
“Housing units are important because they drive school costs,” said Leo Blair, chairman of Harvard’s Board of Selectmen.
Several times during the meeting Blair returned to the topic, wanting to know “how many dwellings and how many school-age children are there in each town.”
Blair pointed out that the “big driver for Harvard is the number of school-age children the School Committee has to forecast education for.” He said that “to come before Harvard with a credible plan, we need a feel for the number of houses.”
Both Ayer selectmen and Devens Committee members resisted Blair’s idea of using a specific number to forecast housing. They suggested aiming at a range.
“Don’t talk about a total number,” advised Devens Committee member Phil Crosby. “Rather, talk about rate of growth and ability to absorb over time—use decades to measure absorption rate.”
Ayer Selectman Gary Luca said that Ayer “has 600 houses coming online gradually and we don’t have an onslaught. There are about 35 units per year coming online.”
Luca said that “if we took Devens, we’d just modify the equation and plan differently. Frankly, it gives opportunity to create a more robust school system.”
He also noted that Ayer was discussing regionalization with Shirley and Lunenburg.
Ayer Selectman Rick Gilles said, “This ties back to the market study on what’s happening in the region,” referring to the state economic development strategy document scheduled for publication some time before the end of the year.
“The state expects something on the order of 1,600 jobs over the next couple of years when BMS (Bristol-Meyers Squibb) and Evergreen are up and running. They expect 4,500 jobs five or six years from now. That’s a lot of people and has a huge kid-factory potential,” he said.
Gilles said, “We’re thinking in terms of historical rates of kids-per-household,” and emphasized, “that’s going to change a lot in the next couple of years.”
Blair responded, “As our voters weigh options, we need clarity. After having an override defeated and then a barebones override, we need to know ‘here’s what’s coming in and here’s what’s going out this year,’ or we will never get the votes,” referring to simultaneous Town Meeting votes in all three towns on disposition of Devens.
During the course of discussions about housing and schools, JBOS members agreed that they need common reference points and a financial model that is understood and agreed to by all. Gilles would like “an apple-to-apple comparison of financial data,” he said. “We don’t want to wait until April to figure out that you are talking about apples and I am talking about oranges.”
Luca pointed out that there is a study from the Mass Department of Housing, referring to the document Massachusetts Housing Market: Current Conditions and Trends, which would contribute insights into how Devens housing trends might emerge. This document is scheduled for release before the end of the year, according to a state representative.
Devens Committee member Mike Boucher said that “if Devens became a town, we would be looking to build a citizen base, so absorption rates for schools and housing would be higher” than for Ayer or Harvard. “If Devens was stand-alone, and included all of DREZ (Devens Regional Enterprise Zone), we felt OK with the [scenario] 2B limit, with 1,150 units.”
Devens Committee members also expressed concern about the ratio of commercial and industrial to residential development. One resident said that “if that ratio gets out of whack, it would not be a great place to live…it really would be an industrial park.”
“You don’t want to have too many more Bristol-Meyers go in without any more residential,” Crosby said.
Gilles suggested that a subcommittee be formed to work on a new financial model to analyze income, expense, and housing data about Devens.
“I think we are going to need a brand new start-from-scratch model,” he said.
His idea was to come up with a template that each town could use in building its model. The individual town models could then be compared as “apples-to-apples.”
After the JBOS voted to form the subcommittee, Harvard Selectman Lucy Wallace proposed that Harvard Finance Committee member Marie Sobalvarro would be an asset in working on this model. Blair said he wouldn’t recommend Marie and went on to suggest that Selectman Tim Clark be Harvard’s representative on the subcommittee. He said later, in response to a question from the Press, “for now, we’d like to keep membership on this subcommittee within the boards of selectmen.”