Daniel King of the Chronicle has an article about the Community Preservation Comittee's (CPC) recommendations to the Town Meeting on funding of open space, recreation and historic preservation projects, link here. Projects getting a nod from the CPC include ...
...the Cornell Farm purchase ($750K), the purchase of property on the south west bank of the Paskamansett River where it flows under Russells Mills Road ($325K), the purchase of the former State Police barracks on Route 6 ($350K), the stabilization and rehab of the Akin House on Dartmouth Street ($195K), a proposal to offer first-time home buyers assistance with both down payments and closing costs on affordable housing properties ($200K), and $20,000 for a consultant to review affordable housing projects. All told the projects come to $1.84 million. That amount nearly exhausts the available funds and reserves for the CPC. I think that the town meeting would be well advised to pass on a couple of these projects and retain some reserves in that account. I don't really have a preference for which ones get delayed or nixed except for the Cornell Farm which I think should be funded as a first priority. What are your thoughts? Tell us in comments.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Community Preservation projects go to Town Meeting
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9 comments:
The town has no business buying the old state police station or after the current mortgage debacle assisting people with mortgages or down payments on housing. Have we learned nothing from the last 2 weeks events?
The Cornell Farm and the property along Russells Mill Road make sense to me.
Buy low sell high.
I don't know. I don't think the town should be in the real estate business. Preserving open space and farms is one thing, buying prime commercial real estate instead of having it on the tax roles is not something the town should be doing in my opinion. Nr should it be in the business of mortgages and housing assistance. If there is one thing I have learned from the current mortgage crisis is that not everyone should buy a house without having their own chunck of equity in it. There's nothing wrong with renting until you've saved the scratch for a traditional 20%/80% mortgage. ALl these no money down deals, no equity negative equity loans are what drove housing prices to insane levels and we need to bring them back to reality.
Buy the farm and maybe the property adjacent to the Pasky and put the remainder in the stab fund.
CPC funds come from a 1.5% surcharge on our property tax and are not held in the General Fund. The money is matched by the state at a rate between 5 and 100% and set aside in a separate account to be used for three purposes only, open space preservation, recreational facilities, and historic preservation.
Does the CPC money have to be spent in its entirety each year? When I said stab fund I was thinknig along the lines of a CPC stab fund not the town's. Should have been clearer in my post.
Bill, with those 3 caveats you listed, open space preservation, historic preservation or recreational facilities I wonder why the housing assistance, affordable housing consultant, and State Police building are even being considered. None of those 3 properties meets those conditions unless someone makes the case the police building is historic which would be a real stretch in my opinion.
Oops. I missed one item in the list. CPC funds can also be used for affordable housing. The State Police barracks would be converted to veteran's transitional housing and count toward our affordable housing stock. The same with the mortgage assistance, it would go to those who qualify for affordable housing.
The CPC surcharge on our property tax can be dropped if the voters so choose. The Finance Committee has been monitoring the CPC account to be sure that the town could pay off the commitments made to date if the town should vote to discontinue the program. The account balances have been sufficient to meet that criteria up until this year. If all the proposals put forth this year are adopted by Town Meeting, that would not longer be the case. Mr. Lynam's file on the matter shows this:
Projected FY09 Running Cash Bal > $2,987,569.74
Remaining Debt >
$3,070,731.25
I think the CPC in general is a good idea, however, when it was first introduced property values were typically a lot less than $200K. The $100K exemption allowed the taxpayer to pay the CPC surcharge on less than 1/2 their property value.
Since that time the only thing that has changed is that property values have shot up dramatically, allowing the CPC to accumulate a lot more money than originally thought. When held funds get large there tends to be a looking around to spend on things that you might not do if there were less money in the pot.
I believe that the CPC exemption for the taxpayers should be raised to at least $200K, and maybe $225K or $250K, which would put things back closer to what was initially intended. This would still allow money to be collected for smart purchases without allowing the fund to get as large as it is today. It would also put money back into the taxpayers' pocket.
Thanks for the clarification. I agree with FrankG's concept of raising the $100k to $250k. Money in the taxpayers pocket is what everyone would like to see these days and it would still leave money available for 'smart' purchases as FrankG says. Too much money sitting there make for make work projects used as an excuse to spend the money available. With all the programs going wanting these days looking for projects because we have too much money set aside yet restricted in its use seems foolish.
How does one go about getting this on the spring TM agenda?
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