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The Devens reuse challenge demands a visionary planning effort grounded in environmental, social, and economic reality. It must be realistic, pragmatic, market driven, flexible, and future oriented and shall be based on the following goals and objectives:
- Development must be sustainable, which means achieving a balance of economic, social and environmental needs while maintaining and enhancing the natural resource base.
- Development must provide a diversity of uses to avoid dependence on one use, and to provide opportunities for a range of skills and experience levels.
- Development must demonstrate the interdependence of economic development and environmental protection and the symbiosis of public and private uses.
- Development must balance local, regional and Commonwealth interests.
- Development must foster uses that will create, at minimum, the number of jobs and value of economic activity at Devens in the year one thousand nine hundred and ninety.
- Development must take advantage of the skills and experience of the regional work force and work to match the skills of the future work force with the needs of industries of the future.
- Development must foster a long term mix of uses which will enhance the regional economy through future growth potential.
- Development must build on Devens' unique characteristics to complement the regional economy and expand the economic base.
- Development must foster an attitude that supports reuse goals, successful redevelopment and the provision of economic activities for individual and collective prosperity.
- Development must protect and enhance Devens' historical resources.
- Development must promote public awareness and enjoyment of Devens' environment.
- Development must protect and enhance the quality of life of the citizens in the host communities, the region and the Commonwealth.
- Development must provide education, training and retraining tied to business, industry and institutions on base and in the region.
- Development must ensure an effective, expeditious and efficient clean-up of hazardous materials, including superfund areas, tied to the needs of the Reuse Plan.
- Development must protect and enhance Devens ecological resources of all-kinds, particularly the aquifer and the Nashua River system.
- Uses which may negatively impact regional natural resources will be allowed only with appropriate technology and proper mitigation.
- Development must minimize the off-base impacts of development in areas such as water resources, air quality, viewsheds, traffic and noise, limiting the impacts to those necessary to achieve reuse goals and objectives.
- Development must foster businesses which enhance the environment through technology.
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