By Adam Swift
In its latest round of grant recommendations, the Chelsea Community Preservation Committee recommended the city council approve Community Preservation Fund grants for four projects.
However, at last week’s city council meeting, several councilors raised concerns about the Community Preservation Act (CPA) program. The grant requests were moved to the council’s ways and means subcommittee.
Chelsea voters approved the CPA in 2016. The CPA imposes a 1.5-percent surcharge on residential and commercial properties, with exemptions for low- and moderate-income homeowners. The Community Preservation Committee (CPC) recommends using those funds for grant projects for housing, open space, or historical preservation.
The city council can affirm, reject, or lower the grant amounts recommended by the CPC.
The projects recommended by the CPC this fall include:
Stitching Against the Heat for $50,000 from the Housing and Community Development department. The grant would be used to provide cooling features in high-use public spaces, and would be a collaborative project between community development and the senior center
Creekside Commons Park Rehab and Rehabilitation for $200,000 from the public works department. The grant would be used to support improvements to Creekside Commons park, including restoration of shade structures and redesign of the spray pad and splash features.
Fitzpatrick Prattville Predevelopment for $200,000 from the Chelsea Housing Authority. The grant would help with the predevelopment for the replacement of housing development units.
TND Top Off Rental Assistance for $50,000 from The Neighborhood Developers. The grant would be used to administer flexible top-off rental assistance.
District 6 Councilor Giovanni Recupero didn’t mince words when it came to his concerns about the CPC recommendations.
“I think this is all a bunch of crap,” he said. “For years, I pay CPA, and every time, it is the same organizations that get the same money. Why don’t they give some of this money to the people, like fixing their homes so they can afford it? But I don’t see that, but by state law, they can’t do that.”
Recupero said the average individual doesn’t benefit from the funds, while the same organizations benefit every year from knowing how to use the system.
“The bottom line is this, every time you see these grants come up, you come and you look who gets them, and then you tell me if it’s fair,” he said. “The system is not set up for the average person.”
District 1 Councilor Todd Taylor said Recupero hit near the mark on some of his concerns about the CPA.
“For the record, I was originally against the Community Preservation for this reason, that this is an extra tax,” said Taylor. “Now that we have established that tax, which the state was originally supposed to kick in money, which it basically has not, .. we are now stuck with an extra tax. The money has to be spent, so then we have to look around for who is going to come up with a project where that money has to be spent.”
Taylor said the intent of the CPA was good, but that the city could have done the majority of the projects on its own without imposing an additional tax.
“They are siphoning off that tax into the usual suspects of community organizations,” said Taylor. “I think that we do need to take a look at whether Chelsea wants to continue to support the Community Preservation Act; I think it is a bad deal for Chelsea. But I would say this, as long as we are going to have the Community Preservation Act, we need to put more funds into historical preservation.”
District 8 Councilor Calvin T. Brown noted that the proposed grant projects are all ones that will benefit the city and its residents.
“It was a vote taken by the public and it is something we should support,” Brown said of the CPA.
City Manager Fidel Maltez said the state is providing matching funds for the CPA, but that it is currently at 18 percent as opposed to the 40 percent when the act was first enacted.
Maltez noted that there are two funding rounds per year for CPA funds, one in the spring and one in the fall.
“The fundings are open to anyone, of course, there is an application that is complicated and you have to do a lot of contract documents,” said Maltez. “So it lends itself to be more prone for organized entities to get it, but it is no different than doing any business with the city. It requires a legal entity and the ability to accept funds.”
Maltez said the practice in the past has been to send the CPC recommendations to ways and means, and in ways and means, the council has the opportunity to learn more about each project.