by Matthew Cook
Trinity Financial President Jim Keefe addresses Harvard's special town meeting prior to the Wednesday night vote on Trinity's proposed Vicksburg Square development. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
Virginia Justicz takes the mic to speak on the proposal's impact on Harvard's schools.
Town Meeting voters in Harvard Wednesday night voted against changes to the Devens Reuse Plan, zoning bylaws, and zoning map which would have allowed Boston’s Trinity Financial to redevelop the former military housing at Vicksburg Square into rental apartments, 80 percent of which would have been income-restricted affordable housing, with preferences for seniors and military veterans.
By state law, the measure required approval from town meetings in Harvard, Ayer, and Shirley, the three towns with historic boundaries within the old Fort Devens military base, in a simultaneous "super town meeting."
After statements by local and state officials, Harvard’s public comment period was cut short when moderator Bob Eubank announced Ayer had voted against the proposal. Harvard Selectman Ron Ricci immediately moved for Town Meeting to take no action, but Ricci’s motion failed to gain the two-thirds majority required.
By a show of hands holding blue cards, Town Meeting then voted on the zoning changes. About a third of the voters voted for it; about two-thirds were against. According to the Town Clerk's office, 517 voters attended the meeting.
Shirley Town Meeting voted in favor of the proposal.
In a statement released late Wednesday night, Marty Jones, CEO of MassDevelopment, the quasi-state agency that manages the redevelopment of the Devens zone, said she was disappointed the Trinity plan will not proceed.
“I remain committed to bringing more workforce housing to Devens and finding a way to make needed changes to Devens zoning for future worthy proposals,” Jones said.
In the same statement, Trinity president Jim Keefe thanked area residents who supported the proposal but said the super town meeting outcome was “unfortunate.”
“...We are confident this plan would have been beneficial to Devens and its neighbors, and we would have restored an important historical asset for Massachusetts,” Keefe said.
Official statements
The pre-vote discussion was kicked off Wednesday night by Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray, who had previously endorsed the proposal on behalf of Governor Deval Patrick’s administration at an appearance at Vicksburg Square last week.
“If you choose to go forward…in support of this project, you will have the continued partnership and support of our administration, and access to our administration,” Murray told Town Meeting Wednesday. “…We are going to work and partner with you to make this project work and make sure that we are being responsive to your needs going forward as well, in and around this project and anything else that comes forward.”
Greg Bialecki, state Secretary of Housing and Community Development and chairman of the board of MassDevelopment, followed Murray. He told Town Meeting the proposed development of Vicksburg Square—mixed with the existing commercial property there—would improve the economic prospects of the portion of Devens that is within Harvard’s boundaries.
“Adding this housing component to Devens and making Devens more balanced between residential and commercial, I feel very strongly, will in fact improve the long-term competiveness and viability of the business uses at Devens,” Bialecki said.
The deteriorating buildings at Vicksburg Square, Bialecki said, should be a “tremendous asset” for the attractiveness of Devens, and they currently aren’t.
“I can assure you we’ve done an awful lot of work in figuring out ways to do redevelopment of the Vicksburg Square buildings to bring them back to where they should be,” he said. “…And we felt very strongly that this, by far, is our best chance to do that. We don’t foresee any other foreseeable ways [that are] economically viable to do that.”
Trinity president Keefe told the assembled voters his company took on the project for what most real estate professionals would say was a bad reason.
“We fell in love with the buildings,” Keefe said. “We knew going in we had a particular challenge with the town meeting concept, but we love old buildings; we’re very good at restoring them. And because of their uniqueness and authenticity, they make great residential communities.”
Keefe said Trinity’s proposal responded to a critical need in Harvard, Ayer, and the state for affordable housing for families and the elderly.
“Young families are leaving this state because they can’t afford the housing here,” he said. “Doesn’t have this housing make Devens more attractive to prospective businesses considering locating there?”
Local board comments
The Board of Selectmen, as chair Marie Sobalvarro told voters, had voted, 3 to 1, against supporting Monday’s warrant item. Sobalvarro reminded voters that an earlier configuration of the Board of Selectmen had supported a 2009 proposal to rezone Vicksburg Square to allow residential development.
“Again, we want to be clear in stating that the Harvard Board of Selectmen has a track record in ongoing support for rezoning Vicksburg Square as residential,” Sobalvarro said. “Additionally, it should be stressed, that we have historically acted in a manner that reflects both the interests of Devens in particular and the region in general.”
School Committee chair Keith Cheveralls and interim Superintendent Joe Connelly also spoke, though neither endorsed a vote one way or the other. They shared enrollment projections they had prepared which, they said, showed Harvard would have the capacity in its schools to educate the new students who would live at Vicksburg Square.
Planning Board chair Kara Minar read a statement from her board that said the Vicksburg Square development, as proposed, “would have a significantly negative impact on the housing stock at Devens that would jeopardize the long-term growth and sustainability of the community.”
Minar criticized the proposal for creating too dense of a collection of affordable housing units.
“This redevelopment plan for Vicksburg lies in stark contrast to the clear lessons derived from failed housing policies of the 1970s,” Minar said. “That is, there is greater success when affordable housing developments are mixed-use, small-scale, and integrated into diverse levels of income.”
Harvard’s Finance Committee made no statement.
Public comment
During the public comment period prior to the vote, Harvard resident Virginia Justicz criticized Connelly’s report on projected school enrollment, as she had previously done in an opinion piece in the Press.
“I wanted to emphasize that those enrollment projections are based on historical factors, and it doesn’t include those potential future changes in Harvard that could and very well might happen as the result of a turnaround in the economy,” she said.
Speaking in favor of the proposal, Andy Perkins, of Bolton Road, noted that Harvard is one of the wealthiest towns in the state.
“We are being asked not to be the town that blocks the creation of 197 units of affordable housing: affordable housing for veterans, affordable housing for the elderly, affordable housing for parents and children,” Perkins said. “We are being asked not to stand in the way at this shot at a decent place to call home for those who lack the choices that we have.”
John Knowles, a Devens resident, said a decision like the Vicksburg Square proposal should be made only after the final disposition of Devens is made.
“If Harvard decides not to take Devens back, then if this plan were to continue, Devens is left with affordable housing numbers—I think, 64 percent, which is unprecedented—which would make it impossible for us to be our own town,” Knowles said.
Susan Hansen, of Park Lane, said she was worried about high levels of student turnover resulting from the rental population at Vicksburg Square.
“All the young people that moved to this town moved here for the quality of the schools, and the thought of bringing one or two students in, constantly changing in the classroom, takes away quality time from the children that are there with homes in town,” she said. “The fact that…you’re thinking about bringing in rental units as opposed to investing in the town, in my mind, is really kind of frightening, because they have no vested interests in keeping Harvard the town that it is.”
Hansen’s was the last public comment before Eubank broke in with the announcement about Ayer.
With the failure of the motion at town meetings in Ayer and Harvard, Trinity’s proposal will not go forward. Keefe has said his company would not pursue the redevelopment plan further if that vote failed.