Lincoln Journal
Wednesday, March 3, 2004

Hanscom effort: Mixed reviews

By Barbara Forster / Correspondent

On Thursday, Feb. 26, the Hanscom Area Towns Committee learned that the
statewide effort to save Hanscom Air Force Base has, so far, produced mixed
results.

"We're putting forth the message and we know that people are hearing it,"
said Alan MacDonald of MassDevelopment. "The point is what comes out in the
end."

Recent efforts focused on changing the evaluation criteria for technical and
research operations like Hanscom so that these types of installations are
not compared directly with bases that have direct military operations.
Unfortunately, reported MacDonald, draft criteria released in December is
virtually the same as in past years.

"We tried to indicate that we were very concerned that past criteria did a
poor job of measuring intellectual value of bases like Hanscom," he said.

The Department of Defense is currently reviewing 425 military bases in order
to recommend relocation and closures. Hanscom and Natick Laboratory are
considered to be in danger as narrow technological missions like these
compete with larger, multi-tasking bases.

In previous closure rounds in the 1990s, Hanscom was considered vulnerable.
The Air Force base accounts for $3 billion in annual business and more than
10,000 jobs.

Bedford Selectman Sheldon Moll suggested sending letters from town officials
supporting the base as the distinction between the civil air terminal and
the Air Force base is blurred on the national level.

"Local support won't save a base but lack of support makes it easy to close
one," said MacDonald.

The list of base closures is expected in May but the time to make the case
to keep Hanscom open starts about now and continues until the end of the
year. MacDonald believes that the "true decision making" will happen just
after January 2005.

The Massachusetts Defense Technology Initiative, which is fighting to keep
the base, now has Chris Anderson of the Massachusetts High Technology
Council as president. In addition to cochairmen Sen. Ted Kennedy and Gov.
Mitt Romney, the group has a board of directors which represent various
constituencies including academia, non-profits, and hi-tech.

MassDevelopment lead the charge until Michael Hogan, president and CEO, left
the agency last year.

Julian Bussgang of Lexington, cochairman of the HATS Environmental
Sub-Committee pointed out that town representation is lacking in the
leadership group. Lincoln Selectman Chairman Sara Mattes was asked to serve
on the Installation Improvement Committee, a sub-committee of the group
geared to finding ways to expand the operation at the base and the high cost
of doing business in this region.

-- Other News

The four towns are starting to share planning information about various
individual town projects to determine the overall effect on the four
communities via the Development of Regional Impact Review Process.

At least two projects are ready to be considered: a 28-unit housing project
in Lincoln at the end of the runway at Hanscom. Mattes noted that Lincoln
officials have already cited the issue of housing close to the runway.

"It's on Virginia Road so it will affect Concord traffic," she said.

Another project is a commercial-industrial venture at the site of the former
Raytheon building at Routes 128 and 2.

Peter Enrich of Lexington, who also chairs the Hanscom Air Field Advisory
Commission, reported that the project would involve "significant" build-out.
"It will have some traffic impacts," he added.

Three years ago, in May 2001, the towns signed a Memorandum of Agreement to
implement the process but a group has never met. Appointing members to the
group is on the HATS agenda for March.

The DRI is a review process among the towns' planning boards that provides a
way to include comments from all four towns on major residential and
non-residential projects that could have significant impacts on the region.
The process is strictly advisory and decisions to submit projects for review
are also voluntary.

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