State lawmakers should make open space a real policy priority
Letter to the Editor | The Boston Globe | March 13, 2021
Massachusetts Conservation Voters, a statewide advocacy group for public open space, applauds Shirley Leung’s call for abundant public parkland in conjunction with any future Fort Point Channel development.
The state Legislature can act now to protect existing public parkland. Article 97 of the Massachusetts Constitution guides municipalities and developers in the process of converting public parkland to another use. That process, spelled out in a policy directive overseen by the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, needs a two-thirds vote of the Legislature for final approval. But before the vote, proponents must prove that a better alternative to taking a park does not exist and be able to replace the land taken with property of at least equal size and ecological value.
Because the requirements are set out in policy, not law, some proponents have tried to bypass the policy before filing the legislation, or not file legislation at all. Attempts have included slipping language into the annual state budget or filing bills to take parkland without going through all of the steps the policy prescribes.
The Public Lands Preservation Act, cosponsored by state Senator Jamie Eldridge and state Representative Ruth Balser, would codify the Energy and Environmental Affairs policy in state law. The decades-old bill passed the House last session, but not the Senate. Now refiled, the measure would require, in addition to the alternatives analysis and compensatory land, a public process prior to filing a conversion bill.
Had the Public Lands Preservation Act been a law in 2018, Waste Management would have had to publicize its plan to take 85 acres of Leominster State Forest to expand the Fitchburg-Westminster Landfill instead of quietly going to the Legislature. Thankfully, the public outcry from Massachusetts Conservation Voters, area residents, some legislators, and other advocacy groups killed the proposal, for now. I hope people will ask their legislators to pass the Public Lands Preservation Act this session in order to bring this process into daylight. The park they save may be their own.
Doug Pizzi
Executive Director, Massachusetts Conservation Voters
Marlborough