I’ve transferred this blog to a new and improved website: www.jmgoldson.com. All archived posts are now located at my new site and I will continue to do my weekly posts there.
I’ve also added a new feature: You can now sign up for FeedBurner email notices.
Thank you for your continued interest in community preservation and planning!
Posted in Uncategorized
As reported on salemnews.com, Peabody’s project to convert an old rail bed to a trail is now complete and open for enjoyment.
The city paid $162,000 in Community Preservation Act funds to design the bikeway. The rest of the more than $3 million cost was shouldered by the state and federal government. MassHighway has overseen construction, and the state will convey the path to the city when its work is done.
The full story, published on Oct 13, “Peabody’s rail trail opens acres of woodland to public” reported by Mathew Roy.
Check out this commentary at patriotledger.com by Rick Holmes, opinion editor of the MetroWest Daily News and member of Upton’s Community Preservation Committee. He urges support for SB90: An Act to Sustain Community Preservation. Here is an excerpt:
But there’s a problem with the CPA. The state contribution was never guaranteed to be a dollar-for-dollar match, but for the first seven years, it worked out that way. The CPA Trust Fund benefited from an unexpected development: The home refinancing rush in the first years of this decade resulted in more real estate registry fees than anticipated. With the real estate bust, that revenue stream slowed to a trickle. The CPA has also been a victim of its success, with more and more communities drawing on the state match.
As a result, the state match has shrunk. The state announced last week that the average state CPA match will be just over 40 percent. The state projects that next year’s match could be as low as 28 percent.
Posted in CPA In General
Tagged An Act to Sustain Community Preservation, Rick Holmes, SB90
Many Habitat for Humanity projects in Massachusetts rely on funding from the Community Preservation Act. Communities including Chatham, Hingham, Nantucket, Newton, Norwell, and Sudbury, have appropriated CPA funds for Habitat for Humanity projects to create affordable housing. The Town of Hudson is one of the latest examples, as described in the MetroWest Daily News on October 15.
Habitat for Humanity’s construction model, which relies on community volunteers, donations, and all-around good will, often creates an uncommonly positive vibe for affordable housing projects. Find a Habitat for Humanity affiliate near you with Habitat’s search engine: http://www.habitat.org/cd/local.
Posted in Community Housing
You may recall from some of my recent posts that I’ve been working with the Massachusetts Housing Partnership (MHP) to write a guidebook on municipal affordable housing trusts. I’m pleased to report that the guidebook is in final production and is expected to be available sometime in November. I’ll keep you posted.
I’m also pleased to report that MHP will be holding a workshop on housing trusts on November 17 in Framingham. The workshop’s panel of speakers includes: Beth Rust, Sudbury’s Housing Specialist; Alice Savage, Easton’s Planning Director; Attorney Kathleen O’Donnell, Kopelman & Paige; Valerie Foster, Dennis Housing Trust; and me.
In response to increased local interest, the Massachusetts Housing Partnership will hold a workshop on how a municipal affordable housing trust can help communities maintain and increase their supply of affordable housing. The workshop will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 17 from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the United Church of Christ Conference Center, One Badger Road, Framingham.
More information and a link to register is on MHP’s website.
In MassAudubon’s Aug-Dec 2009 issue of its newsletter, Bob Wilber, Director of Land Protection, offers some advice on land protection strategies in his article “Reason for Hope as Our Climate Heats Up.”
For a century or more, land conservation efforts have focused on averting development and the associated loss of habitat and other features of open land . . . Climate change has now emerged as an additional and quite formidable threat, with the potential to transform the nature of not only Massachusetts but the entire planet.
Wilber continues by describing the climate change effects we’ve already begun to see and states that, “Smart land conservation will play a critical role in reducing the potential scope of this change, which should give us all reason for hope.”
He describes the land protection strategies that are already emerging to help mitigate climate change impacts:
- Focus on intact forested landscapes, which will have the greatest resilience as climate change becomes more pronounced. Also, forests play a critical role in absorbing carbon.
- Make connections among existing blocks of protected land – particularly those that serve as wildlife corridors and those that are north/south oriented.
- Continue to focus on rare species but include concentrating on “representativeness” – the “Noah’s Ark” approach.
- Maintain/enhance vegetative cover along riparian corridors, particularly cold water streams.
- Maintain/enhance flood storage capacity and facilitate upgradient salt marsh migration as the sea level rises.
In Massachusetts, the Community Preservation Act, which has funded the protection of over 11,300 acres of open space to date, is an important local funding source for continued land protection efforts. CPA communities can integrate climate change protection goals within all aspects of CPA, as I describe in my July article for CPA Update “Green CPA Projects.”
My article on Senate Bill 90 (An Act to Sustain Community Preservation) was released today in the October issue of New England Planning (the newsletter for the MA and RI chapters of the American Planning Association). See “Viewpoint by Jennifer M. Goldson” on page 13 of the newsletter.
An excerpt:
Faced with shrinking budgets and struggling to make ends meet, how can cities and towns strive do anything beyond providing basic services? But, cities and towns should also play a key role to further regional and state smart growth goals and preserve their community’s singular character. . . .
Our state recognizes that municipalities just can’t afford to meet these lofty – but worthy - goals out of their regular budgets.
In fact, Massachusetts is a national pioneer on this front; its innovative legislation to foster local community preservation efforts, the Community Preservation Act (CPA), turned nine years old on September 14th. . .
All is Not Rosy for CPA
Despite these impressive achievements, the CPA could be in jeopardy if the legislature does not take action soon. . .
After six straight years of dollar for dollar matches on local surcharge revenue, the state trust fund distributions will dwindle to a base match estimated at only 30 cents to the dollar in October 2009. The program has become so popular that the trust funds, under the current collection formula, are not enough to meet current demand, let alone sustain growth.
