Banking on the land

Part 4

by Jason Gay

Cape Cod's bill will be up for Beacon Hill approval first. If the Cape gets its land bank, there will be jubilation throughout the state's conservation community. The coastline extending from Bourne to Provincetown is considered the dam between the existing island land banks and the masses of mainland communities that want them. Giving Cape Cod its land bank, the theory goes, is akin to opening a legislative floodgate for transfer taxes.

Local environmentists hope that the passage of these transfer taxes will signal a new era of environmentalism in Massachusetts. There is little question that the state's current effort to preserve open space is insufficient; likewise, communities must do more to restore their historic buildings, create affordable housing, and clean up polluted areas. By vigorously involving the public in the conservation process -- through a locally run land bank or another, similarly minded organization -- there is optimism that more-traditional cities and towns can retain their characters well into the next century.

It's a mission that's long overdue, says Bill Klein: "Throughout the early part of this century, cities all over this country had very strong park programs, land-acquisition programs, with great amounts of money in the city budget, even during the Depression. But then, we saw fewer and fewer communities make a dedicated effort to balance open space with development."

Transfer taxes, land banks, and community-preservation acts are not a solution unto themselves. Land banks will never raise enough money to meet all of a city or town's open-space, historic-preservation, environmental-cleanup, or affordable-housing needs. Other measures are needed to supplement these efforts.

But approving transfer taxes for conservation and community purposes is an important start, Massachusetts environmentalists say. This new form of revenue -- not a honey pot, but a well-monitored, judiciously utilized reserve -- will do much to protect the physical beauty and character of the state's cities and towns. That's a worthy goal -- one that should register from faraway places like Spring Point, on Martha's Vineyard, to the streets and power corridors of Boston.

Back to part 3

Jason Gay can be reached at jgay[a]phx.com.