any suburbs are spending lavishly to protect open space using
funds raised under the Community Preservation Act, an analysis shows,
despite the urgent need in many of those communities for what the measure
is also supposed to provide - affordable housing.
Supporters of the act say land conservation is often the easiest thing
to do and that housing takes more time and is more complicated. The act,
approved by the state Legislature in 2000, allows cities and towns to
institute a property tax surcharge and use the money to acquire open
space, create affordable housing, and preserve historic sites.
But buying open space to block further development appears to be the
priority for many of the 58 communities who have adopted the act, from
Rowley to Weston to Cohasset. The efforts to buy open space are also
occurring in precisely those communities with the lowest level of
affordable housing, as defined by the state.
In many cases, furthering one goal of the act - preserving open space -
is working directly against the affordable-housing goal. When the amount
of developable land is reduced, the remaining land becomes even more
precious, and land and home prices go up even more.
''It's a real concern,'' said Douglas Foy, secretary of development for
Governor Mitt Romney. ''If it's used in a more balanced way, it can be
very valuable, but the promise of the CPA to deal with affordable housing
needs absolutely has to be fulfilled.
''Our success will be measured by what we build, not what we lock up
and save through land conservation,'' said Foy, who in his former role as
president of the Conservation Law Foundation was a big backer of the
Community Preservation Act.
Under the law, communities must spend a minimum of 10 percent of the
surcharge income on each of the three goals: open space, affordable
housing, and historic preservation. A fourth category, recreation, is also
being pursued in many towns.
Foy said that if only the minimum is being spent on affordable housing,
the law may have to be changed to make sure that goal is not ignored. In
addition, he said, if towns are using funds from the act to preserve as
open space property that is being considered as a site for an affordable
housing project under Chapter 40B, the state's anti-snob zoning law,
''that's going to be a problem.''
The lack of affordable housing in affluent suburban communities has
been an explosive issue in Eastern Massachusetts for the past several
years. Only a handful of towns have more than 10 percent affordable
housing, the threshold set by Chapter 40B. Under that law, a developer can
fast-track a project in municipalities where less than 10 percent of
housing is affordable for those earning 80 percent of the community's
median family income.
Local officials complain that Chapter 40B projects are too large,
generate traffic and schoolchildren, and hinder the ability to plan for
growth. But housing advocates say towns should create more affordable
housing themselves, so that they might get to 10 percent and be free from
Chapter 40B projects. Using funds from the Community Preservation Act is
one obvious way to do that, advocates say.
The analysis of spending patterns was done by the Community
Preservation Coalition, the statewide group that monitors the
implementation of the act and advises towns on the process for getting
projects done. The 58 communities that have passed the act have raised $18
million locally, and received or will receive $18 million in matching
state funds.
Boxford, Cohasset, Dracut, Duxbury, Hampden, Hopkinton, North Andover,
Rowley, and Weston have all made open-space acquisition a high priority,
spending millions to preserve land or add to town-owned parcels already
protected from development. Weston plans to spend $3.5 million to purchase
Sunday Woods, 23 acres of open space; North Andover is eyeing the 35-acre
Half Mile Hill property for $2.4 million; Rowley wants to spend $1 million
for 27.6 acres of farmland and woods on Boxford Road; Duxbury plans to
spend $1.65 million on 32.9 acres of open space; Boxford is buying 135
acres of the town's Sawyer-Richardson property for $3 million; and Dracut
will pay $960,000 to preserve 45 acres on East Richardson Road.
Cohasset, where a particularly nasty battle over a proposed Chapter 40B
project by national developer Avalon Bay has raged for months, wants to
devote $10,000 of Community Preservation Act money to kick-start the
purchase of 32 acres known as the Barnes property. Purchase of that land
for conservation will cost $1 million.
In these communities, money spent on preserving open space dwarfs any
efforts to promote affordable housing. Hopkinton wants to spend $2 million
for 159 acres of open space, while $100,000 is slated to go toward moving
a home donated by EMC Corp. to town-owned land, where it will be converted
to provide only two affordable units.
''Communities that think it's a way to get open-space money and not do
anything about affordable housing are putting the flexibility of the CPA
in jeopardy,'' said Thomas Callahan, head of the state's Affordable
Housing Alliance and a member of the Community Preservation Coalition.
Callahan said he is encouraged, however, by the number of suburban
communities that are getting engaged on the issue of affordable housing as
they realize that police officers and teachers can't afford to live in
their towns.
In Bedford, for example, about $400,000 in funds raised from the
Community Preservation Act surcharge is being dedicated to predevelopment
costs for an affordable-housing project on Concord Road, a ''buydown''
program to resell condominiums at a reduced price, the conversion of a
duplex for affordable units, and the hiring of a grant writer for the
Bedford Housing Trust.
Jeff Hoyland, a member of the Bedford Community Preservation Committee,
said the current focus on housing was part of a natural progression. ''We
took care of the historic stuff, and there's no land left to purchase, so
we have those housing projects in the works now,'' he said.
Scituate, meanwhile, has proposed spending $440,000 to create a land
bank that would be used to develop affordable single-family homes, subject
to approval at the spring Town Meeting. Sudbury has penciled in $500,000
for 33 new affordable units, also subject to Town Meeting approval; and
Westford seeks to spend $250,000 to help prepare the site of a 15-unit
senior housing project, plus $75,000 for a consultant to help secure
funding for 55 units of senior housing at a complex on Tadmuck Road.
In some cases, according to the analysis, the amounts being spent on
housing are not large, but the efforts are multifaceted. Chilmark has set
aside $60,000 to assist up to five families with mortgage payments,
$56,000 to study the feasibility of building affordable housing on an
abandoned business site, and another $40,000 for rental assistance for
five to six families.
Dorie Pizzella, director of the Community Preservation Coalition,
acknowledged that ''the overwhelming majority of the projects were
open-space acquisitions, but that's a snapshot of the first projects
funded under the act. The trend is reversed for spring, and we're seeing
more housing projects in the pipeline than open space, historic
preservation or recreation.''
The infrastructure and know-how for buying open space is there in many
of these towns, she added, while equivalent expertise on planning,
financing, and building affordable-housing projects is virtually
nonexistent. Many towns that want to create affordable housing under the
act are finding it time-consuming to navigate their own permit processes
and environmental rules, she said.
Anthony Flint can be reached at flint@globe.com
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