A three-year, $990,000 project to collect and treat stormwater entering Bare Hill Pond from the town center got the go-ahead at Annual Town Meeting May 5 as voters approved the first funding installment of $119,100 from community preservation funds. The project is a joint venture wherein the state will provide $600,000 and the town nearly $400,000, half of which will be in the form of services. In addition to the $119,100 request this year, the Bare Hill Pond Watershed Management Committee expects to ask for $81,000 in community preservation funds next year, completing its funding obligation.
Such funds will be harder to come by next year, Community Preservation Committee (CPC) Chairman Mark Cooper told the voters at Town Meeting. Since 2001, when Harvard began participating in the program, the state has provided 100 percent matching funds for whatever the town raised, until this year when the match dropped to 67 percent. For the upcoming fiscal year—fiscal 2010—the match will be 29 percent, according to the most recent notification from the state. While that news is “disappointing,” Cooper said, he pointed out that the town will still get a “29 percent return on its investment.” The town’s share of the match comes from a 1.1 percent property tax surcharge.
In addition to the pond project, the voters approved six other CPC funding requests: $100,000 for the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust, $100,000 for the conservation fund, $2,500 for CPC administrative expenses, $7,500 for signs to mark historical districts in town, $23,211 for historical reserves, and $6,556 for housing reserves to correct an accounting error. By law, the funds can be used only for acquisition of open space and recreation, affordable community housing, and historic preservation, and at least 10 percent of new funding must be allocated to each of these three categories every year.
