diff --git a/cms/static/js/base.js b/cms/static/js/base.js
index 47835fda66..eefc8c3c37 100644
--- a/cms/static/js/base.js
+++ b/cms/static/js/base.js
@@ -15,6 +15,10 @@ $(document).ready(function() {
     // pipelining (note, this doesn't happen on local runtimes). So if we set it on window, when we can access it from other
     // scopes (namely the course-info tab)
     window.$modalCover = $modalCover;
+    
+    // Control whether template caching in local memory occurs (see template_loader.js). Caching screws up development but may
+    // be a good optimization in production (it works fairly well)
+    window.cachetemplates = false;
 
     $body.append($modalCover);
     $newComponentItem = $('.new-component-item');
diff --git a/cms/static/js/template_loader.js b/cms/static/js/template_loader.js
index 2e900814b0..03104566ec 100644
--- a/cms/static/js/template_loader.js
+++ b/cms/static/js/template_loader.js
@@ -35,7 +35,8 @@
       
       localStorageAvailable: function() {
        try {
-          return 'localStorage' in window && window['localStorage'] !== null;
+    	   // window.cachetemplates is global set in base.js to turn caching on/off
+          return window.cachetemplates && 'localStorage' in window && window['localStorage'] !== null;
         } catch (e) {
           return false;
         }