Legislature Votes to Expand CPA for Towns

North Andover may soon see improvements to its parks and ball fields.

The Massachusetts House of Representatives voted unanimously this week to improve and expand the state's Community Preservation Act.

“This has been a top priority of mine for quite a while, and I am thrilled that we were able to make such necessary improvements to the Community Preservation Act,” Sate Rep. David Torrisi said. “This proposal will not only allow North Andover to improve and rehabilitate many of our existing local ball fields for our kids but will preserve many of our historical resources that are invaluable to our community.”

The CPA, which was signed into law 12 years ago, allows cities and towns to add a surcharge on property tax bills for open space preservation and historic rehabilitation.

The proposal adopted Monday would set aside $25 million for the state to match local funding for these initiatives as well as expand the CPA to include rehabilitation of existing parks, playgrounds and athletic fields (rather than just paying to build new ones).

Another very popular aspect of the proposal is that it would let towns use revenue sources aside from property tax surcharges to fund community preservation accounts. And it would allow towns to exempt small businesses from CPA property tax surcharges on the first $100,000 of property value.

At Town Meeting last June, the town appropriated $1.3 million in community preservation funds for various projects, including elderly housing sidewalk restoration and more than $100,000 for the construction of new athletic fields.

“This vote to improve upon the current Community Preservation Act is one of the most important votes I will take during the fiscal 2013 budget debate,” Torrisi said.