Jon Chesto CHESTO MEANS BUSINESS
Could two former military bases help win the battle against the state’s housing crisis? After years of speculation, answers to that question may be arriving for the former Fort Devens army base and the former South Weymouth naval air station. With Devens, leaders in the base towns of Ayer, Harvard, and Shirley plan to discuss a proposal on Wednesday to open the long-forsaken Vicksburg Square barracks for up to 400 apartments or condos.
Separately, in South Weymouth, Town Meeting voters in Rockland and Abington recently joined the Weymouth Town Council to approve a rezoning of the former air base — known post-closure as Southfield and now called Union Point — that could allow a pair of development firms to add thousands of homes in addition to nearly 1,300 existing ones.
Both former bases straddle three municipalities. They are of similar vintage, closing down around the same time in the 1990s. They have vast swaths of open space, just waiting for construction.
And they sure can be tricky to develop. One local official likes to say nothing is easy when it comes to Devens. Getting stuff done at Union Point can be even more complicated. Mastering development politics in one municipality is hard enough. Getting buy-in from three separate towns, in comparison, can be like playing 3D chess.
The rebirth of the 4,400-acre Devens base, about an hour’s drive northwest of Boston, has been more successful than the off-again, on-again attempts to rebuild South Weymouth. It’s a track record that’s in part due to the fact Devens is run by a quasi-public state agency, MassDevelopment, instead of a private developer.
Devens essentially acts as the state government’s unofficial industrial park. Need a spot for a big drug factory or a promising clean-energy technology? Just call MassDevelopment. About 7,000 people work among a long list of companies at Devens today — roughly the same as during the base’s heyday.
However, relatively few people actually live there: State law caps the number of housing units at 282, with an exemption made for some senior housing. Devens is only 12 units shy of that limit, even though
At 1,400-plus acres, the former South Weymouth air station is less than half the size of Devens. But the potential for new housing there could be much greater.
roughly 50 undeveloped acres remain zoned for residential construction and some commercial areas, such as Vicksburg Square, could be rezoned at a later date.
Previous efforts to persuade all three towns to increase the limit have failed. But there’s new hope that an agreement can be reached. All eyes are on the former Vicksburg Square barracks. Changing the cap to redevelop the 435,000-square-foot, boarded-up brick complex could allow an extra 350 to 400 units.
Some in Harvard had hoped to make headway in discussions over how Devens will be governed once MassDevelopment’s time in charge expires in 2033, before touching the housing cap. But with little progress made on that other issue, Harvard’s Selectboard chair, Rich Maiore, said leaders in his community are now open to converting Vicksburg for housing.
Such a move might ease some pressure to build even more housing at Devens, as evidenced by Senator John Cronin’s recent attempt to fully remove the cap via legislation. Plus, Maiore noted, it’s silly to let Vicksburg Square crumble from disuse.
Meanwhile, Ayer town manager Robert Pontbriand noted that the state’s housing shortage has brought the issue at Devens to the forefront. And the Healey administration is on board with getting more homes built there.
More than two-thirds of Vicksburg’s 20 acres sit in Ayer, with the rest in Harvard. One proposal on the table would involve eventually redrawing the town lines to put Vicksburg entirely within Ayer’s boundaries and rezoning it as residential. Any housing cap change or rezoning would require approval by a “super town meeting” involving all three base towns. While redevelopment of Vicksburg would still take several years, it could also be the next step toward opening other unused Devens parcels for housing.
But don’t expect the state legislators in the area to stop pressing the Healey administration for more help on a permanent governance structure for Devens. Senator Jamie Eldridge said the local delegation recently renewed its push for the administration to release $400,000 for planning costs; local officials hope some of that can be used in the planning for more housing there.
Then there’s the puzzle of South Weymouth, about a halfhour drive south of Boston, depending on Southeast Expressway traffic.
At 1,400-plus acres, the former air station is less than half the size of Devens. But the potential for new housing there could be much greater. John Twohig, one of the South Weymouth developers, said the zoning changes recently approved by the three base towns could allow up to 6,000 homes to be built there over time.
This zoning change would give Twohig’s firm, New England Development, and partner Brookfield Properties much more leeway about where to put homes, commercial uses, and open space. The two companies were brought in nearly four years ago to pick up the pieces left over from a disastrous run by former base developer, the now-defunct LStar. The Legislature is expected to take up changes to the preexisting base plan next year.
Zoning isn’t the only issue. Solutions need to be found for water and sewer. The city of Weymouth currently provides these services, but its capacity can only go so far. So Mayor Bob Hedlund has started pursuing an application for Weymouth to join the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, a move that would likely require a new pipe through neighboring Braintree to the Blue Hills.
Meanwhile, addressing waste-water treatment and disposal could involve all three base municipalities’ respective sewer services. Hedlund met with the developers in late November to plan the next steps for reviving the project.
Count Heidi Anderson among the people eagerly awaiting a resolution.
She’s president of the Southfield Neighborhood Association, and a transplant from the Washington area who moved to Massachusetts in part because her husband grew up on the South Shore. The couple saw huge potential when they moved to the base in 2017. LStar imploded not long after. There’s so much room for more housing, she said, and getting it built needs to happen for the early pioneers who thought a mini-city would go up around them and instead look out at big stretches of empty land.
It’s not just the Union Point residents who should be rooting for solutions.
These two former military bases ultimately have room for thousands of new housing units. Maybe it’s finally time to unlock their full potential.