With tighter limits on funds, some parks take a hard fall

High court's ruling hits home for cities, towns with little room to create new recreational facilities

A rusted and broken fence at Pellegrini Park in Newton. (Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff)

With its towering trees, grassy fields, and basketball and tennis courts, Newton's Stearns Park is a popular recreational spot for neighborhood residents.

But it shows years of neglect: a graffiti-covered checkerboard table, picnic tables carved with letters, a rusting roof shielding the pavilion area.

"I've seen improvements at other Newton parks that I haven't noticed here," said Michele Cruz, pushing a stroller down a leaf-covered walkway.

Newton was planning to fix up Stearns and nearby Pellegrini Park, both in the village of Nonantum, with Community Preservation Act money.

But the state's highest court ruled last month that the program's funds, drawn from a special property-tax surcharge and state matching grants, could not be used to renovate recreational facilities - unless they were initially purchased or created with those funds.

The exception isn't much comfort to communities with little or no open space left to acquire. Many are scouring the decision like Talmudic scholars for ways to legally justify fixing ball fields and tot lots with one of the few pots of money unravaged by budget cuts.

While the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling was directed at the two Newton parks, it was bad news as well for Ashland, where selectmen voted to postpone a tennis court project, and Northborough, where a playground may be downsized.

"Ultimately, it's going to affect any community if they want to do any type of recreation activity," said Doug Pizzi, a spokesman for the Community Preservation Coalition, a statewide group promoting its adoption. "By and large the only funds available for the projects are CPA funds."

Since the Community Preservation Act's inception in 2000, 140 communities have adopted the law, which allows municipalities to impose a property-tax surcharge to support local affordable housing, recreation, open space, and historical preservation efforts. The state provides matching dollars.

Ashland's town manager, John Petrin, said his town is particularly reliant on the fund. The Community Preservation Act, he said, "has been an opportunity to do great things, but as our communities grow it's so difficult to create the recreational spaces people desire."

Ashland selectmen voted last month to postpone the tennis court project because of the ruling, said the board's chairman, Paul Monaco, who noted there was not a great demand from residents for the facility.

But town officials are continuing with a proposal to use $291,000 from the fund to build a skate park at the middle school. A Special Town Meeting on Monday will vote on the expenditure, Monaco said.

"We had [town] counsel look at the ruling and decided we could still move forward with the skate park because we were creating new recreational space out of a parking lot," he said.

In Northborough, a playground proposed for Ellsworth-McAfee Park may be downsized because the town cannot use CPA funds on it, said Tom Sartori, a member of the town's Community Preservation Committee.

"The bottom line is the more money we are able to raise, the better a playground we'd be able to give to the citizens of Northborough," said Sartori, who added that the playground manufacturer is offering the town a matching grant. "For every dollar we can't raise we lessen the value of the playground by two."

While some communities are forced to alter their recreation plans, Stow is making final preparations for construction of a $1.2 million recreation facility to be paid for entirely from its community preservation fund.

The complex, which will include soccer fields, Little League and softball diamonds, basketball and tennis courts, and a pedestrian exercise trail, is being built on 7 acres that Stow purchased last spring with CPA funds, said Bob Wilber, chairman of the local Community Preservation Committee.

"I would say one of the reasons we acquired that land with community preservation funds was because we interpreted the law" correctly, Wilber said.

Although Stow planned ahead, Wilbur said, he would support revising the law to allow expanded recreational expenditures if adequate funding is still reserved for open space, housing, and historical preservation. "I'd want to make sure it doesn't disrupt what has been a very good structure for the CPA that allows those three needs to be addressed," he said.

The court ruling did not surprise town officials in Wellesley, said Jack Morgan, chairman of its Community Preservation Committee. "When we expended money from the community preservation fund for recreational projects, it's been for the purpose of preserving our existing recreational assets, not rehabilitating them," Morgan said.

For example, Wellesley spent $425,000 removing invasive weeds from Morses Pond over the past several years, he said.

The town also used Community Preservation Act money to restore a section of Sprague Field that lies over an old dump and could not be used for fields until the remediation was completed, Morgan said. The work was part of a larger renovation that drew from private donations and money from the town's general fund.

In Sudbury, the town appropriated $960,000 of Community Preservation Act money in 2006 for construction of an artificial turf field at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. Funding for the project also came from the school district and athletic user fees.

Jody Kablack, the town's director of planning and community development, said the project was allowed because the existing facility was not usable, forcing Lincoln-Sudbury to suspend its home games. Also, Sudbury gained partial ownership of the field, creating a new recreational space for local sports teams and residents, Kablack said.

"None of our projects either now or in the past have been ineligible under the current legislation," she said. "It's very well-crafted legislation and it took into account a lot of scenarios."

Meanwhile, to the pleasure of Wayland officials, a Middlesex County Superior Court judge recently dismissed a suit challenging the town's appropriation of $300,000 in CPA money to build an artificial turf field at Wayland High School, according to an announcement by Town Administrator Frederic Turkington.

Under the state's 10 taxpayer statute - a law that allows groups of 10 or more residents to sue a community over spending on municipal projects - residents must file for relief before any money is spent, which did not happen in the Wayland case, the judge ruled. Construction of the field was completed in September 2007.

Pizzi, the Community Preservation Coalition spokesman, said a broader interpretation of the law would allow urban communities that have minimal open space remaining to use the funds on other projects that improve the city.

"If you're built out, you are really stuck between a rock and a hard place," Pizzi said.

The coalition supports a bill sponsored by state Senator Cynthia Creem, a Newton Democrat, that would amend the law to allow improvements to existing recreational spaces, Pizzi said.

The bill is in the House Ways and Means Committee but is not expected to advance this legislative session, Creem's staff said. It will have to be refiled once the new session begins in January.

Even if the bill never passes, Newton officials say, the act remains beneficial.

"There are still many valuable projects out there that are eligible," said Alderman Leonard Gentile. "On the one hand, it's disappointing we can't do" the park improvements, "but I anticipate there will be projects we can do with CPA funds in the future."

While the Stearns and Pellegrini parks remain stalled, the city hopes improvements to Upper Falls Playground could be done through the historical preservation portion of the Community Preservation Act. The parks department is holding a public meeting tonight at 7 at the Emerson Community Center to determine the historical significance of the Upper Falls space, said city spokesman Jeremy Solomon.

"We've invited members of the community to this meeting to share photographs and old documentation of events and occurrences at the park to gauge how the park has played a role in the city's history," said Solomon, who noted the land was donated to Newton in 1909.

Mayor David Cohen said Monday that he would support using CPA funds for the park as long as it was in accordance with the court ruling and the advice of the city's legal department.

Meanwhile, in Nonantum, the Pellegrini and Stearns parks wait to be repaired. Cruz, who has run a family day-care operation in the neighborhood for the past 18 years, said she has seen the need for the improvements.

"I think it would be a big benefit to the community to keep these parks up and safe for the children," she said.