With Swampscott preparing to vote on whether to adopt the Community Preservation Act (CPA), I found myself down the legislative rabbit hole of how the CPA came to be.
The Act long precedes my time representing Swampscott in the State House. What I discovered is a uniquely local idea shaped by the complexities of the legislative process, but one that never lost its original focus of providing transformational change for any community choosing to adopt it.
The community preservation movement was born of a desire to protect what is special about Massachusetts in the face of rapid growth and development. Local empowerment was the central tenant from the beginning: Post-industrial cities, fast-growing suburbs, small rural idyls, and historic coastal towns like Swampscott are best equipped to decide how to maintain their character and quality of life. As the idea cured over nearly two decades in the legislative sausage-making machine, economic development became another goal.
“People come to our state because we are rich in history and culture. If we ruin these resources, we ruin the economic engine of our state,” said then-Massachusetts Secretary of Environmental Affairs Robert Durand in 1994. It was Durand who, as a state representative and state senator from Marlborough, championed community preservation since the 1980s.
Specifically, the Act offers cities and towns the opportunity to partner with the state to achieve three objectives: preserve open space and historic sites, create affordable housing, and develop outdoor recreational facilities. It is funded through a local property tax surcharge of up to 3 percent, which is then matched by the Community Preservation Trust in the range of 20 to 30 percent (the rate varies depending on the revenues collected each year and the number of communities participating in the program). All CPA communities are guaranteed a disbursement from the CPA Trust Fund, which is given out by local Community Preservation Committees comprised of between five and nine citizens.
The CPA’s two-step process puts the decision squarely in the hands of individual communities. First, cities and towns must gain the approval of their local legislative bodies. Swampscott Town Meeting gave its blessing in May. The Town has set the property tax surcharge at 1.5 percent, and exempted the first $100,000 in value of each taxable parcel of residential property. Second, a majority of voters must approve the surcharge in a regularly scheduled municipal or general state election. Question 6 is on Swampscott’s Nov. 5 ballot.
The idea for a property surcharge was a last-ditch effort by the act’s legislative champions to salvage the idea of community preservation. For more than a decade, the funding mechanism was a real estate transfer tax (RETT). It was modeled on Nantucket’s first-in-the-nation land bank, created in 1983. The Island financed its program with a 2 percent RETT. Martha’s Vineyard followed. But opposition to RETTs sprang up within the real estate industry, most notably the strong, well-financed National Association of Realtors. Other individual land bank proposals from Massachusetts communities – and well as Durand’s own bill to bring the program statewide – languished in the Legislature as a result.
In 1999, CPA backers switched to the property tax surcharge, an idea voters passed on Cape Cod. To encourage local adoption, the state created a $15 million pool of matching funds. This turned out to be a powerful combination. Thirteen years since the first bill was filed and 17 since the creation of the Nantucket Land Bank, the Community Preservation Act was signed by then-Governor Paul Cellucci and Lt. Governor Jane Swift in a celebratory ceremony on September 14, 2000.
The act’s positive impact is substantiated by data: Statewide, more than $3.4 billion has been raised funding 16,266 projects. One hundred and ninety-six cities and towns – 55 percent of the Commonwealth – have adopted the CPA, which means 77 percent of Massachusetts residents live in a CPA community. Some live in the 11,500 affordable housing units that have been created with CPA funds. Many enjoy the 36,098 acres of open space preserved and the 3,700 recreation projects built. If you’ve been to Lynch Park or the Cabot Theatre in Beverly, or Salem Willows and Hamilton Hall in Salem, you’ve visited CPA projects.
These successes aside, it remains up to Swampscott voters to decide if the Community Preservation Trust is the right tool, given the needs, goals, and unique characteristics of the community. That was the legislative intent from the start. State government offers financial incentives because affordable housing, open space, recreational opportunities, and historic preservation broadly strengthen every municipality’s health and economic vitality. But each community defines and shapes what that means to them.
State Representative Jenny Armini represents the 8th Essex District of Marblehead, Swampscott, and Lynn.
