MARC DRAISEN State match to shrink
Residents of four communities complained to state legislators last week that towns are inappropriately using a state law that’s intended to create affordable housing and preserve open space.
Homeowners from Weymouth, Newton, Concord and Wayland said towns are using money from the Community Preservation Act to pay for artificial turf on athletic fields and maintenance of dilapidated parks and other public properties that have been neglected for years. The CPA, which was passed in 2000, enables cities and towns to charge up to a 3 percent property tax surcharge and receive state matching money to fund affordable housing, open-space acquisition and historic preservation projects.
The residents’ comments came at a public hearing last week to discuss a bill that would amend the CPA to guarantee more state money for towns that adopt it and make it more desirable to cities that have resisted passing tax overrides.
The bill, which is supported by a coalition of affordable-housing and land-preservation groups, includes sections indicating that CPA funds can be used to install artificial turf, replace playground equipment, and build public restrooms and parking facilities
Those proposed amendments would help drain resources from open-space acquisition and affordable-housing projects and violate the original intent of the CPA, according to opponents.
“The legislation before you will only add to the exploitation of state funds originally intended to preserve and protect historical resources and open space,” Concord resident Patricia J. Hecht told members of the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Business.
Hecht said Concord wants to eliminate 8.5 acres of wooded land within Walden Woods to build two artificially turfed playing fields that will be used by Concord-Carlisle Regional High School and by the town’s youth sports organizations. The land is owned by the high school, but Hecht said the town wants to lease the land from the school in order to justify using CPA funds.
The use of CPA funds for artificial turf on playing fields has prompted lawsuits in Wayland and Newton. Michael Patterson, a Wayland resident who served on the town’s Community Preservation Committee, said Town Meeting voted to use $300,000 in CPA funds to help pay for artificial turf on the town’s football field. But opponents filed a lawsuit against the use of the funds.
Patterson said if the changes are approved, the CPA would become another source of capital funding and would “betray the faith and trust of people who support [the law].”
‘No CPA Police’
Clarissa Rowe, chairman of the Community Preservation Coalition, which spurred the legislation, said the group will rework the bill and eliminate the language about the AstroTurf. “We had no clue when we were drafting this [bill] that this would be an issue,” she said.
Rowe told Banker & Tradesman that four communities have used CPA funds for artificial turf without any controversy. The coalition started hearing from residents who opposed the use of CPA funds for artificial turf, which can be costly, about a year ago, she said.
Rowe said the testimony at the hearing was helpful but she also noted that decisions and discussions about CPA spending have to be made at the local level. “There really is no CPA police. The citizens are the police,” said Rowe.
Sen. Harriette Chandler, a Worcester Democrat who co-chairs the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Business, asked the Community Preservation Coalition to consider comments made at the hearing and alter the bill. “Clearly this bill is not yet ready for any disposal,” Chandler said.
Some who spoke, including Newton resident George Foord, urged the state Department of Revenue to formulate rules and regulations to clarify any confusion. Foord said Newton has used CPA funds to renovate and improve city assets that were acquired years before the CPA was passed.
Rowe agreed that it would help if DOR came up with such rules and regulations, but she said the department has been “loathe” to do so.
The Community Preservation Coalition pressed for CPA amendments in order to secure at least a 75 percent state match. Communities that have adopted the CPA so far have been able to get a dollar-for-dollar match for surcharge taxes that have been imposed on residents. But under the law, cities and towns are only guaranteed a 5 percent state match.
State matching money for the CPA comes from a trust fund that draws from fees attached to real estate transactions recorded at registries of deeds throughout the state. With home sales and refinancing activity booming in recent years, the fund has been flush with cash. But with the softening real estate market and a slowdown in refinancing activities and home sales, the coalition predicts that the state match will dwindle.
“This is probably the last year of the 100 percent match,” said Marc Draisen, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, a regional planning agency that is part of the Community Preservation Coalition.
The coalition estimates that by 2009, the state match will fall to 50 percent. The decline would make it difficult for new communities to adopt the CPA and for towns that already have done so to sustain their involvement, according to Draisen.
Under the bill, registry fees would be increased if the trust fund fell below a certain level that wouldn’t allow the state to provide the 75 percent match. “The fees are small compared to transactions,” he said.
The bill also proposed to permit cities that implement a 1 percent local tax surcharge to get state matching funds equal to a 3 percent surcharge if they already are setting aside local money, through linkage fees or hotel/motel taxes, for affordable housing, open space or historic preservation. With that change, the Community Preservation Coalition is hoping to get more urban communities to adopt the CPA.
Currently, 127 cities and towns have passed the CPA, according to the coalition. The CPA has been adopted by clusters of suburban communities but few large and medium-sized cities like Boston or Lowell.
