FRAMINGHAM COMMUNITY
PRESERVATION NOW!

Vote YES on QUESTION 3 on the November ballot.

Question 3 on Framingham’s November ballot asks voters if our city should adopt the Community Preservation Act (CPA). If this referendum passes, Framingham will establish a Community Preservation Fund to conserve open space, expand outdoor recreation, preserve historic resources, and support community housing.

Voters’ approval of Question 3 will:

Create new and better outdoor recreation opportunities for us all
Protect open space and natural resources from being lost to development
Save historic landmarks and reuse historic buildings for new purposes
Make housing more affordable for seniors, young adults, and families

Community Preservation is about protecting things we value and improving our quality-of-life. All residents will benefit if Framingham adopts the Community Preservation Act. There are potential Community Preservation projects across the City in every voting district.

[LEARN ABOUT THE COMMUNITY PRESERVATION BALLOT REFERENDUM]

WHO WE ARE

Community Preservation’s supporters come from all corners of Framingham. We believe that the City can improve the quality-of-life of residents by protecting open space, expanding outdoor recreation, preserving historic resources, and supporting community housing.

Our mission is to educate the City’s voters about Community Preservation’s benefits and to motivate them to vote YES on Question 3 in support of adopting the Community Preservation Act.

Please join us! Get involved now!

WHAT IS THE COMMUNITY PRESERVATION ACT

Massachusetts’ legislature passed the Community Preservation Act (CPA) in 2000. CPA’s goal is to address the difficulties that municipalities, Framingham among them, have finding money for quality of life projects. These include protecting open space, expanding outdoor recreation, preserving historic resources, and supporting community housing.

CPA permits cities and towns to create a Community Preservation Fund to support such projects. 177 cities and towns have adopted CPA by local referendum since 2001. They have raised over $2.3 billion for over 12,000 local community preservation projects. This includes more than $670 million they received in state matching grants.

By passing the November 2020 CPA referendum, Framingham voters will enable the City to receive the same rewards and benefits.

[LEARN HOW THE CITY WILL PAY FOR COMMUNITY PRESERVATION AND MANAGE THE COMMUNITY PRESERVATION FUND]

If Framingham’s voters approve Question 3 on the November 2020 ballot, we will begin to build our own Community Preservation Fund in July 2021.

How will funds be raised?

Framingham Community Preservation will be funded by a 1% CPA surcharge on all property tax bills plus an annual state match.
All eligible low-income residents and moderate-income seniors will be fully exempt from the surcharge.
All Residential properties receive an automatic exemption of the first $100,000 of assessed property value for CPA surcharge calculation purposes.
All Commercial and Industrial properties receive an automatic exemption on the first $100,000 of assessed property value for CPA surcharge calculation purposes.
The 1% CPA surcharge will raise $1.5 million for Community Preservation each year, at current assessments and tax rates.
The average annual state match will be at least 20% ($300,000).

What will this cost property owners?

67% of residential properties will pay less than $50 each year, equal to less than $12.50 per quarter. 75% of residential properties will pay less than $55 per year.
50% of commercial and industrial properties will pay less than $120 per year, or less than $30 per quarter. 75% of commercial and industrial properties will pay less than $370 each year.

Click on How Much Will CPA Cost Me? to estimate your own surcharge cost. The Resources page includes a Surcharge Estimator that shows CPA surcharges at current assessed property values and tax rates.

Who will manage the Community Preservation Fund?

CPA stipulates that an independent Community Preservation Committee has day to day responsibility for administering the Fund and identifying potential projects to be funded.
CPA further requires that the Committee must include a representative of the Planning Board, Conservation Commission, Parks and Recreation Commission, Historic Commission, and Housing Authority. The Mayor may appoint up to five additional citizen members, who must be approved by City Council.

How are projects chosen for funding?

The Community Preservation Committee will identify potential projects for each funding cycle. Most CPA communities use an application process to generate projects from a variety of sponsors.
The Committee will evaluate project proposals and applications, recommend projects to be funded, and recommend funding levels, consistent with available funds, long term plans, and prior commitments.
CPA requires that at least 10% of the funds for each fiscal year will be spent or reserved for later spending on each of CPA’s community preservation purposes: (1) open space and outdoor recreation, (2) historic resources and (3) community housing.
City Council receives these recommendations and decides which projects to fund and at what funding level. Only projects recommended by the Committee can receive funding. Funding cannot exceed Committee-recommended amounts, but can be less than recommendations.

WHY ADOPT CPA NOW?

If Framingham had adopted CPA in 2001 as is now proposed, Framingham would have collected an estimated $30,000,000 for its Community Preservation Fund. The Fund would have received a state match totaling $6,000,000 or more.

This money would have supported hundreds of local community preservation project opportunities, which instead were lost, compromised, delayed, or made more expensive.

Today there is no shortage of new, potential community preservation projects across the City in every voting District. But the City’s budget is more constrained and less able than ever to pay for these projects.

[LEARN ABOUT RECENT LOST OPPORTUNITIES]

Major Open Space lost forever since 2010

Millwood Golf Course. The City’s Open Space and Recreation Plan had identified this 64-acre privately held golf course near Callahan State Park as a priority parcel to protect. Framingham had a right-of-first-refusal to purchase if it ever came on the market. But when it came up for sale, Town Meeting could not muster the will to commit funds for its purchase. Instead, a developer purchased it in 2018 for market-rate, adult-restricted housing, with only a small parcel alongside Millwood Street designed as Open Space.

OTHER EXAMPLES: Marist Fathers

Historic landmarks threatened and with an uncertain future

Athenaeum Hall (1847) is adjacent to the Watson Place Fire Station (1901), vacated in 2019. The Athenaeum was closed in the early 1990’s. Built as Saxonville’s Town Hall, the Athenaeum has served in many public capacities. Today, it is the City’s most threatened historic building, empty for nearly 30 years. In 2015, the Town paid for a detailed design for revitalizing the Athenaeum as a Community Hall. But Framingham has failed to commit funds for this renewal. CPA funds could make a difference here.

OTHER EXAMPLES: Watson Place Fire Station; Edgell Grove Cemetery; 1768 postal mile markers.

Updates to municipal historic structures delayed

Village Hall (1834), once the Meeting House on the Centre Common, is today a venue for community events. For many years, it needed rehabilitation to meet current building standards (fire suppression, electrical, ADA compliance) and to address years of deferred maintenance. Time and again, Town Meeting failed to approve these repairs. Finally, in 2016, with the building on the verge of being closed, repairs were approved and the work was completed. CPA funds could have paid to this work sooner and at a lower cost.

OTHER EXAMPLES: Edgell Memorial Library; Old Danforth Bridge.

Outdoor recreation expansion or improvement deferred

Farm Pond could be the outdoor recreation hub of South Framingham. Only a tenth of a mile from downtown, with a 149-acre pond, the park offers fishing, boat access, a playground, bocce courts, and walking trails. But it’s potential for outdoor recreation has not been fully realized. There could be new walking/biking trails around the pond and south along the Sudbury aqueduct. There could be a dog park, a splash park, new launch sites and facilities for kayaking and canoeing, better family picnicking areas, and more. CPA funds could make this happen.

OTHER EXAMPLES: Cushing Park; Bruce Freeman Bike Trail; Carol Getchell Nature Trail; Pusan Road playground.

GET INVOLVED:
Vote, Volunteer, and Donate

Our campaign timeline to educate voters about the CPA referendum is short. We need your help now to reach voters and motivate them to vote YES.

[GET INVOLVED NOW]

VOTE

Please vote YES for CPA on the November CPA referendum. There are three ways to vote.

Voting begins in early October for mail-in and absentee ballots
Early in-person voting starts in mid-October at designated polling sites.
Vote at your district polling place on November 3.

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

We need volunteers to help educate voters about the benefits that Community Preservation will bring to Framingham and to encourage voters to say YES to CPA.

Here are some ways you can help:

Learn the benefits that CPA will bring to Framingham, share that information with friends and family, and ask them to vote YES for Community Preservation Now.
Volunteer your front yard for lawn signs as we ramp up our campaign in September
Assist with lawn sign placement in every voting district.
Reach out to organizations you belong to and ask other members to support CPA.
Put a message in a website or newsletter boosting CPA. We’ll provide talking points.
Help hold signs at strategic local locations between now and election day to get the Community Preservation Now message out.

Send us your contact information and let us know what interests you.

VOLUNTEER

DONATIONS

Printing and postage are expensive. We need your help with those costs. There are no donation limits for referendum campaigns.

Checks
We can accept donations by mail sent to:
Framingham Community Preservation Now
P. O. Box 3034, Framingham, MA 01705

Electronic Giving
Easier for you, if you have a credit or debit card, you can use it to donate through our designated site. Just connect through the secure link below. We have chosen this site because it collects the information we must submit when we report donations received.

DONATE

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FRAMINGHAM COMMUNITY
PRESERVATION NOW!

Vote YES on QUESTION 3 on the November ballot.

NOVEMBER CPA REFERENDUM

WHO WE ARE