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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010-09-29-CPC-min Minutes of the Community Preservation Committee Wednesday September 29, 2010 2:30 pm Room 207 Town Offices Present: Board Members: Wendy Manz,Chair; Marilyn Fenollosa, Vice Chair; Joel Adler, Norman Cohen, Jeanne Krieger, Leo McSweeney, Sandy Shaw, Betsey Weiss and Dick Wolk. Administrative Assistant : Nathalie Rice Also in attendance was David Kanter, member of the Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC). The meeting was called to order at 2:35 pm by Ms. Manz. 1.Approval of Minutes – Minutes from the 2010 meetings of 2/4, 3/11, 3/22, 3/30, 4/8, 4/12, 4/20, 4/26, 9/13 and 9/20 were approved as amended. 2.Community Preservation Act Signs – Ms. Shaw updated the Committee on signs for CPA projects. She had met with the sign vendor who did the historic signs for the Tourism Committee, and suggested that signs could be approximately 18”x 24”, blue with white lettering, and displaying the Town seal. The vendor will be making a mock up for the CPC to review. Ms. Shaw and Ms. Rice reviewed the existing projects that would be suitable for signs, and identified approximately ten projects. (Ms. Rice distributed a Master List of projects) Ms. Shaw said there was also a need for signs where projects had been completed, such as in municipal buildings. Members felt signs for ongoing projects were a higher priority. Ms. Manz asked for a show of hands for those who wished to see signs at completed projects vs. those for projects in progress. The entire Committee was in favor of signs for on-going projects, and a minority was in favor of permanent signs for completed projects. The entire Committee was in favor of permanent signs on conservation parcels, such as the Leary and Busa lands. Ms. Krieger reminded the Committee that it would have to get HDC approval for any signs in Historic Districts. Ms. Shaw will have a mock-up and a quote for a maximum of ten signs at the next meeting. Ms. Fenollosa suggested Ms. Shaw also get a sample of the material that would be used for the signs. 1 3.Homeownership Subsidy Plans – Ms. Manz updated the Committee on a recent meeting of the Housing Partnership. She said the Partnership is working to define a program where homebuyers who cannot make down payments on mortgages or pay closing costs can apply for subsidies from the Housing Partnership and the Town. The Housing Partnership is considering applying for CPA funding. She noted that certain otherwise eligible buyers have been unable to buy affordable homes in Lexington, since State and Federal subsidies were not currently available for particular units. She said there had not been much support for these additional subsidies from the Board of Selectmen. Mr. Kanter expressed his opinion that funding requests for such a subsidy program should first have Town approval before applications are made to the CPC. Ms. Fenollosa inquired about the cost of individual subsidies, to which Ms. Manz replied they were very modest – in the range of $6,000. Ms. Fenollosa suggested that the developers involved might wish to take a second mortgage to cover such costs. 4.Land Acquisition Projects, Timelines and Deadlines – Mr. Wolk spoke to this item on the agenda at the request of the Chair. He explained that the negotiation timeline for a parcel of land was difficult to predict. He estimated that approximately two months is needed to request and receive the two appraisals which will probably become standard practice in future acquisitions. The Committee had a lengthy discussion of the benefits of a time deadline for the receipt of appraisals. Ms. Weiss stated her observation of the past two years, reminding the Committee that the Busa appraisal was received th late afternoon on May 5 2009, and that night the CPC met to vote on the Busa project which was the night before Town Meeting voted on the project th at a Special Town Meeting on May 6. The Cotton Farm appraisal was received mid-March, 2010, and the CPC’s request for a second appraisal was th received April 8, 2010, so the CPC voted on the Cotton Farm on April 26, th and Town Meeting voted two days later on April 28. In both cases, she said the CPC did not have adequate time for proper review of the projects. Ms. st Weiss suggested the date of February 1 as a reasonable deadline for the receipt of all final appraisals. The Committee discussed exceptions to this deadline, and agreed that in extraordinary cases, exceptions would have to be st made. Mr. Adler moved to have the CPC adopt a February 1 deadline for the receipt of all final appraisals. The motion passed 5-3-1, (Mr. McSweeney had previously left the meeting at 3:00 pm.) A letter will be sent to the Conservation Commission, the Board of Selectmen, and the other relevant Boards and Committees to notify them of this new CPC policy. 5.Needs Assessment Report Update – Ms. Manz spoke to this item, stating that she and Ms. Fenollosa had done an initial editing of the report, 2 particularly to the introduction. She asked members with particular constituencies to review the sections they had originally drafted, and to update information accordingly. The following sections were assigned to the following members; Historical, Ms. Fenollosa; Housing, Mr. Cohen and Mr. McSweeney; Open Space, Mr. Wolk; and Recreation, Ms. Shaw. 6.Financial Discussion with Rob Addelson, Assistant Town Manger of Finance – Mr. Addelson met with the Committee at the request of the Chair to discuss the financial balances in the Community Preservation Fund. He handed out a summary of the balances in the various accounts, and explained the source of each of the balances. In the case of the “three buckets” (historic preservation, open space and community housing) and the Undesignated Fund Balance, the balances included monies from closed out projects. (Any unexpended funds from projects are returned to the “buckets” from which they were appropriated.) Mr. Addelson estimated that approximately $7,034,740 will be available for FY12. This figure does not include the $2m reserve which the CPC keeps in the Undesignated Fund Balance, or the debt service from the Busa and Cotton Farm land acquisitions. The debt service for FY12 is estimated at approximately $2.2M, but is dependent upon (1) the timing of the closing for the Cotton Farm land acquisition and (2) whether the Town receives State Self-Help funds for the purchase. Mr. Addelson also explained that the CPC will have approximately $244,000 returned to the Undesignated Fund Balance – the prorated portion of the premium the Town received from the Busa Farm bond sale. This money will need to be transferred from the General Fund to the Undesignated Fund Balance after a vote of Town Meeting in March of 2012. 7.Timing of Capital Projects, Carl Valente, Town Manager - Mr. Valente met with the Committee at the request of the Chair to explain the timing of capital projects, with specific attention to how information is provided, updated and finalized during CPC review. Mr. Valente explained that capital projects were currently in the process of being reviewed and that appropriate th projects would be submitted to the CPC by October 15. He noted that every project is different, and that most do not involve design stages and changing estimates as was the case in the Town Office Building (TOB) project. He noted that the difficulty of the TOB project was due to the fact that the Town had to await the 75% design estimate, and that only portions of the project were approved for funding with CPA funds. He suggested that the Town’s budget formulation process is easier when the CPC decides to completely fund or not fund a project, and that, in any case, early information on the CPC’s policies, information needs, and intentions is helpful to the staff. 3 Mr. Wolk noted that much of the difficulty in approving capital projects is due to the philosophical differences of Committee members. Ms. Manz responded that despite these differences, the CPC must have a predictable process for review of capital projects. She noted that the CPC needed to understand the Town’s expectations and have clear guidelines regarding requests for additional information. She said she was still somewhat unclear about how much information the CPC needed in order to make a decision on certain projects. She hoped the CPC and Town Manager’s Office could work collaboratively on a suitable time frame for project review. Mr. Kanter suggested that the process should be fairly straightforward, with th project submission on October 15, and review in the weeks thereafter. He noted that if the CPC needs further information on a project, they simply inform the applicant. If the applicant does not supply the necessary information within the time frame requested by the CPC, the CPC may choose not to approve funding for the project, and may “roll it over” to the following fiscal year. The responsibility rests on the applicant to meet timely and reasonable requests by the CPC. Ms. Weiss felt that it was important to have deadline dates for applicants to follow. Mr. Kanter, however, believed that CPC review could be on a “project by project” basis. There was general agreement among members that the process of project review had to be more predictable both from the standpoint of the CPC and of the applicants. Mr. Adler summarized the discussion and said the CPC hoped to work cooperatively and positively with its applicants to achieve a smoother process of project review. Mr. Valente requested a meeting with the CPC at their next meeting to discuss legal expenses for both the Busa and Cotton Farm land acquisitions. Under the open meeting law, further detail on the matter should wait until the next th meeting of the CPC. He will meet with the CPC on October 13. The meeting was adjourned at 4:55 pm Two documents were reviewed or presented at the CPC meeting; (1)An untitled handout with the 6/30/10 balances of the four “buckets” in the CPA fund. This document is on file with the CPC. (2)A spreadsheet entitled, “CPA Projects – Master List” updated by Ms. Rice, dated September 27, 2010. This document is on file with the CPC. Respectfully submitted, Nathalie Rice Administrative Assistant Community Preservation Committee 4