THE WORST thing about the Community Preservation Act isn't that it raises taxes at the start of a recession, the worst possible time. It isn't that it will kill jobs. It isn't that it carves a gaping hole in Proposition 2½, the bedrock tax-limitation law that has protected Massachusetts taxpayers for 20 years. It isn't that it incoherently promotes two goals — increased housing and increased open space — that are mutually exclusive.
The worst thing about the Community Preservation Act is that it is antichoice.
Voters in 13 Bay State cities and towns will vote this week on whether to adopt the CPA. A yes vote will impose an annual property tax surcharge of up to 3 percent, on top of the increase permitted by Prop 2½. The revenue thus raised (along with state matching funds) can then be used to acquire open space, preserve historic buildings, and develop "affordable" housing.
How these funds get spent in each municipality will for the most part be determined by an appointed "community preservation committee." Elected officials will be free to reduce the committee's spending recommendations, but not to increase them or to substitute other projects.
The arguments offered by CPA advocates amount to assertions of appetite: We want more affordable housing/open space/historic preservation; therefore let's increase taxes and buy some. But what they are really demanding is: No tough choices.
Most of the commonwealth's cities and towns are spending at or near record levels. Is there nothing in those big budgets that could be scrapped or shrunk to free up funds for more housing or open space? Are there no line items that have outlived their usefulness? Conversely, is an increase in housing, open space, and historic preservation really that important now? The CPA campaign says: Don't look! Don't choose! Just jack up taxes and you can have it all.
Every municipality gets money from Beacon Hill; most are getting more than ever. Do local officials spend this largesse wisely? Are their priorities straight? Should some of the funds they devote to other causes be rerouted to housing or open space? The message of CPA is: Don't think about it! Don't set priorities! Use the new law to leverage more state dollars and you can buy everything.
In Boston, where the proposed tax hike is Question 1 on the ballot, most of the CPA discussion has revolved around affordable housing. To hear the proponents, you'd think housing was a subject no one had ever bothered to put on the public agenda. You'd never know that Boston already has 14,000 units of public housing. Or that a slew of community development corporations operate thousands of additional units. You'd never know that private apartments serve as affordable housing to an army of Section 8 voucher holders. Or that the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency channels subsidized mortgages to low-income home buyers and has lent tens of millions of dollars to build mixed-income housing.
"Huge parts of the city are given over to affordable housing," says Harvard's Howard Husock, an expert in housing and urban policy. He rattles off neighborhoods in which subsidized housing predominates — lower South Boston, Egleston Square, Grove Hall, Humboldt Avenue, the lower end of Charlestown. "Look how much affordable housing we have right now in Boston. How much is the right amount? Do we really need more of it?"
Husock has written at length about the strengths and weaknesses of existing affordable-housing programs; the Community Preservation Act is only the latest in a long line of government housing initiatives. Which ones work? Which ones don't? Which ones need to be bolstered? Fixed? Phased out? You can't vote intelligently on Question 1 if you don't know the answers to those questions, but those touting the tax increase can't be bothered with such details. Why assess the affordable-housing programs we already have when you can just tack on another one?
It isn't only in Boston that CPA supporters avoid making choices. In Newton, where the proposed tax increase is the only question on Tuesday's ballot, the CPA debate has been as much about open space acquisition as about low-income housing. But as the Newton Taxpayers Association points out, the city already has 51 public parks, 15 housing organizations, 1,600 affordable dwelling units, four historical societies, eight open space or environmental groups, and 18 neighborhood organizations — not to mention an $800,000-a-year Planning Department charged with managing programs for affordable housing, land use, and historic preservation. Does Newton really need more of this?
Higher taxes and new committees are not the keys to more housing and open space. What we need is less government interference, not more; a freer market, not a more restricted one. CPA promises "community preservation." What it will deliver is acrimony, bureaucracy, and disappointment.
Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
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