2005-03-03-AC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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March 3, 2005 Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee March 3, 2005 Members present: J. Bartenstein, D. Brown (Vice Chair), R. Cole, R. Eurich, P. Hamburger, D. Kanter, A. Levine (Chair), R. Pawliczek Time and place: The meeting was called to order at 7:40 by Al Levine in Town PM Office Building Room 111. Material Distributed: ?? Agenda ?? Community Preservation Coalition document dated November 2002 ?? Draft #5 of the Appropriation Committee Report by David Kanter Minutes 1. : Paul Hamburger agreed to take the minutes of this meeting. Discussion of Community Preservation Act (CPA) 2. : Bob Bicknell, representing the Lexington Housing partnership, addressed the meeting. He focused on the advantages of CPA for affordable housing development. He discussed a Stow plan under CPA which pays homeowners a fixed fee for a home to remain affordable even after the homeowner leaves the property. Also, a Franklin School proposal was mentioned. Eric Michelson pointed out that Marshall Derby has said that LEXHAB has enough money to deal with the Franklin project should CPA not be enacted. The motion from the Board of Selectmen is expected to be for 3%, to start in FY 07, and to use 2 exemptions, namely: (1) low and moderate income exemption, and (2) $100,000 reduction in property valuation. The commercial/industrial exemption was not selected by the Board of Selectmen. The committee asked that Bob co-ordinate with the other interest group players to supply a history of projects that would have applied were the CPA in effect then and a list of future projects that would apply. Each of these lists should have at least a rough dollar value associated with them. Proposed Tree Planting Expenditure 3. : John Frey, Chair of the Tree Committee addressed the meeting. He explained the three articles in the warrant relating to trees. He did not have an answer to where the proposed $15,000 requested would come from. John allowed that he had had the opportunity to ask for this money before the warrant closed. It was suggested that there is $5,000 in the budget for tree planting. It was pointed out that the Selectmen, aware of the request, had evidently prioritized the tree planting below other requests, and that is why it is not in the budget. John pointed out that the Town had lost over 200 trees in the past two years in excess of those few planted. This $15,000 request would only pay for 30 trees. It would be a token, and not keep up with the public tree loss being experienced by the town. 1