Enhancing and Strengthening the Falmouth Community
The 2000 Massachusetts Community Preservation Act (CPA) supports the concept of preserving community as a smart growth tool for towns. One that enhances and strengthens community by preserving homes for working people, historic buildings that give a town its visual character, open space for parks and nature reserves, and outdoor recreational facilities for all. Community Preservation funding also strengthens communities economically by expanding housing opportunities and construction work and by ensuring a town maintains the historic and natural values that attract its visitors.
The CPA authorized towns to establish Community Preservation Funds, and the Cape Cod Amendment allowed Cape towns, by a Town Meeting vote, to replace the Cape Cod Open Space Land Acquisition Program (Land Bank) with the Community Preservation Act. It was the Cape’s Land Bank program that provided the model for the CPA. Falmouth residents voted to create a CPFund in 2005 and the CPFund assumed repayment obligation for $30 million in Land Bank debt.
The Falmouth CPFund supports projects that preserve the Falmouth community in the areas of community housing, historic preservation, open space, and recreation. The Fund draws on annual revenues from a 3 percent property tax surcharge and an annual state match that has averaged 33 percent per year over the first ten years of the CPFund operation.
