The Community Preservation Act of Massachusetts A report card on its first decade Brian Roche T hey say politics can make for strange bedfellows. And while the three constituencies that joined together to help pass the Community Preservation Act (CPA) in Massachusetts nearly a decade ago may not exactly be considered strange, they did need to overcome some differences and be quite diligent in their effort to pass this landmark legislation. Groups supporting open land conservation, affordable housing, and historic preservation joined together to become more than the sum of their parts and were able to accomplish something that no group could have achieved on its own. After many successes, some growing pains and a few controversies, now is a good time to take a look back at this law and measure its effectiveness. After 10 years of effort, the CPA was passed into law in September of 2000 and established a new source of funding for a variety of community projects that often fell by the wayside in the normal course of local governance. The CPA allows participating cities and towns to adopt a property tax surcharge up to 3 percent to support open space, recreation, historic preservation and affordable housing. In return, the state provides a percentage of matching funds for these projects drawing from a pool financed by a $10 or $20 fee on all Registry of Deeds transactions. $650 million spent Although passing a tax increase can be a hard sell in many communities, 142 cities and towns have since adopted the law – a full 40 percent of all the communities in Massachusetts. More than $650 million CPA dollars have been spent in the last nine years to fund nearly 3,500 projects, 1,685 of which were for historic preservation. The Gothic Revival Unity Church, Easton. Page 78 ■ Antiques Journal Online Exclusive ■ February 2010