PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Community Preservation Committee voted to hold its annual preservation plan review public hearing on Monday, Nov. 7, in Room 203 at City Hall. The hearing will also be broadcast on Pittsfield Community Television. 

 

The purpose of this hearing is to review the planning work priorities from when the Community Preservation Act was adopted in Pittsfield, to receive feedback from the public on the planning work they have done, and to review how the funds have neem utilized over the last several years. 

 

The CPA was adopted in Massachusetts in 2000 to "enable a locally supported fund supplemented with a partial match from the state that could be utilized for projects that involve historic preservation, open space, outdoor recreation, and affordable housing."

 

The eligibility applications are due Nov. 18. Whether a project is eligible for CPA funding is determined by the Community Preservation Act, not the committee. 

 

"So first step being eligibility, and that's not whether the city likes the project, or if it fits into cost goals, that simply doesn't meet the requirements of the CPA legislation to fit in as a historic preservation, community housing, or recreation and open space project," City Planner CJ Hoss said.

 

The CPA funds in 2022 went to the Berkshire Athenaeum for tax and vital records digitization, Berkshire Theatre Group for garage facade restoration, Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity to cover three projects, and other organizations. A complete list can be found here.

 

Step two is to prepare a more thorough funding application where the committee will typically share the scoring criteria with applicants so that they can craft their application based on those criteria.

 

The CPA funding budget is based on a tax surcharge that has been collected and then the state match. At the beginning of every fiscal year, the committee puts forward an estimated budget of what the committee would collect from the property tax bills and the state match but in the end, they are not sure because things change.

 

The committee needs to update the actuals and then in the next month, it should get the state match. The state match is questionable because it is never clear how much of the state surplus is going to be allocated.

 

The state match could be bigger but based on the estimates in June, the city would receive $172,747. Combined with a local collection and reserve funds of $450,000 carried over from last year, the committee estimating it will have approximately $818,435.44 that can potentially be allocated to projects, Hoss said. 

 

In other business, the committee voted to elect Danielle Steinmann as chair after serving as vice chair for many years. 

 

Taking Steinmann's role as vice chair is Alexandra Groff, who has been a member since the fall 2016. 

 

With a lot of new blood in the committee, the members also discussed the possibility of doing a survey in the early stages of the next calendar year to inform 2023's funding cycle. This will be discussed during future meetings.