Report finds inequity in flow of CPA funds
It's not necessarily how the Community Preservation Act was intended to work, but a recent study says the poorest communities are giving to the richest -- and in this case, the richest are such suburbs as Newton, Weston, and Sudbury. The study, conducted by researchers at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, says that some of Boston's wealthiest suburbs are using the act to acquire open space, historic lots, and housing, partially at the expense of poorer cities and towns across the state.
For example, Sudbury used the funds to install artificial turf fields at its high school and the town of Weston bought 27.5 acres with CPA funding, at $120,000 per acre. Meanwhile, communities such as Boston, Framingham, and Worcester received no benefits from the program.
"What's striking to me is the idea that people in less affluent places should be helping to provide recreational facilities in more affluent places," said David Luberoff, executive director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, which published the report. "I have a hard time finding the ethical . . . or moral justification."
The Community Preservation Coalition, a group of housing and environmental groups that helped enact the Community Preservation Act in 2000, defended the law, saying the funding has promoted projects that have benefited the whole state. Doug Pizzi, a spokesman for the coalition, said communities enacted the measure as a way to combat overdevelopment.
"I really think it's disingenuous to pit community against community," Pizzi said of the report. "I don't think that argument holds water."
The CPA was enacted in 2000 and allows communities to vote on whether to adopt a 1 to 3 percent real estate tax surcharge. Money collected locally is matched by the state from a trust fund subsidized through $10 and $20 transaction fees imposed statewide at the Registry of Deeds. Communities may use the local and state funds for income-linked housing, open space and historic preservation, and recreation projects.
According to the report, the 10 communities that reaped the most benefit from the CPA were Cambridge, Newton, Weston, Nantucket, Westford, North Andover, Duxbury, Barnstable, Sudbury, and Plymouth. They received more than 40 percent of the state's matching trust funds since the inception of the program. Cities like Boston, which contributed an estimated $11 million to the state trust fund, saw no benefit because the city voted against enacting the program. Similarly, Worcester and Framingham, which contributed $3.6 million and $1.7 million respectively, also saw no return because neither has voted on whether to participate in the program.
Researchers said less affluent communities shied away from imposing new taxes. "Because affluent communities are more likely to adopt the optional tax, and because matching funds are linked to property values, wealthy cities and towns have received most of the revenue from the statewide fees," the report said.
Sudbury officials had no comment on the report. But Jody Kablack, Sudbury's director of planning and development, acknowledged that CPA has been a boon for the town.
Town officials have appropriated $12 million in CPA funds since 2001. Most of it (about 66 percent) has gone toward purchasing open space, with 17 percent going toward recreation, 10 percent for affordable housing, and 7 percent for historic preservation, according to information it posted on the town's website. Town officials also appropriated $960,000 in CPA funds to install artificial turf at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School.
"I don't see a downside to it," Kablack said of the act. "I think communities that haven't adopted it should work to."
Few places have benefited more than Newton, according to the report. Both Cambridge and Newton have received a combined $37 million in state CPA funds since the program started, or more than 20 percent of all contributions to the state's trust fund.
In Newton, that money has been used to build or rehabilitate more than $8.3 million in affordable housing and open space, $4.3 million on historic preservation, and $14 million on open space and recreation purposes. Some of the biggest purchases include $5.3 million to preserve open space and create trails at Kesseler Woods and $2.3 million for land abutting Crystal Lake in one of the city's toniest neighborhoods.
Newton Mayor David Cohen endorsed using more than $2.9 million in CPA funds to install artificial turf at Newton South High School. A local lawyer filed a lawsuit challenging the purchase. Cohen has since withdrawn the proposal.
Cohen said this week he thought the law was "working well" but needed "fine tuning." He said he supported a proposal by state Senator Cynthia Stone Creem, a Newton Democrat, that would broaden the way CPA money could be spent, specifically allowing it to be used for the "installation of artificial turf."
Creem's proposal would allow communities to adopt a 1 percent CPA tax and fund another 2 percent of the tax with revenues from its hotel and restaurant tax or other municipal funds.
Luberoff said Creem's proposal did not address the program's "equity issue." And he said he knows of no proposed legislation that does.
"This is something that I would hope people in the Legislature would consider," he said.
Megan Woolhouse can be reached at mwoolhouse@globe.com. 