Following more than 20 years of advocacy from a coalition of local, regional, and national land conservation and environmental organizations, the Public Lands Protection Act (PLPA) has passed, signed into law by Governor Charlie Baker on November 17th, thus ending a more than two decade effort to codify a policy of “no net loss” of public land.
Article 97, adopted in 1972, is the 97th Amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution. It guarantees Massachusetts residents basic environmental rights and outlines how those rights are to be protected: The people shall have:
The right to clean air and water,
Freedom from excessive and unnecessary noise,
and the natural, scenic, historic, and esthetic qualities of their environment;
and the protection of the people in their right to the conservation, development and utilization of the agricultural, mineral, forest, water, air and other resources is hereby declared to be a public purpose.
The general court shall have the power to enact legislation necessary or expedient to protect such rights.
In the furtherance of the foregoing powers, the general court shall have the power to provide for the taking, upon payment of just compensation therefore, or for the acquisition by purchase of otherwise, of lands and easements or other such interests therein as may be deemed necessary to accomplish these purposes.
What does that mean for the future of this horse race track proposal? Town counsel admitted previously that the racetrack was not an agricultural use.
Lands and easements taken or acquired for such purposes shall not be used for other purposes or otherwise disposed of except by laws enacted by a two thirds vote, taken by yeas and nays, of each branch of the general court. Former Attorney General Robert Quinn’s 1973 opinion regarding Article 97 interpreted this to mean that clearly states that if a municipality, county, or the state wishes to change the intended use of such land – whether by conveying the land to a private citizen or corporation or transferring the parcel to another branch or agency within the government or to another municipality – the filed legislation must be approved by a two-thirds majority of both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the General Court of Massachusetts. The authors of the amendment decided on a two-thirds majority in order to provide adequate protection for Article 97 land.
The PLPA was introduced more than 20 years ago to strengthen and codify into law the Commonwealth’s longstanding No Net Loss administrative policy, which states that any public open space (Article 97 land) converted to a different use must be replaced with land of equivalent financial and natural resource value and defines a process for doing so. Two-thirds of legislator’s approval is required, and is commonplace. The final legislation defines certain limits on the ability to set aside cash payments in lieu of replacement conservation land and ensures increased transparency and accountability in instances where it is allowed.
By adopting Article 97 as an amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution in 1972, the people of the Commonwealth asserted their right to a clean and healthful environment and the protection of ever more valuable open spaces. Fifty years later, it is clearer than ever that natural areas are critical to the well-being and resilience of communities, especially Environmental Justice communities. Our public open spaces help us mitigate and adapt to a changing climate, improve the outdoor recreation economy, enhance public health, and protect wildlife habitat. By codifying and improving the state’s No Net Loss policy into law, this important legislation upholds the will of voters who adopted Article 97 by ensuring that public open space cannot be developed for other uses, unless alternative options have been fully evaluated and land of equivalent natural resource value is designated to replace it.
The new law aims to guarantee that the total area of public parks and conservation land doesn’t decrease. Massachusetts already protects conservation land designated under Article 97 of the state constitution through a policy called “No Net Loss.” Under the policy, if those public lands are developed, other land of equal natural resource value must be set aside to be protected.
With the new law, the process becomes obligatory and includes more requirements to evaluate whether developing that land is really the best option. “It is a tool for meeting the climate crisis. We need open space to mitigate against flooding. We need it to absorb carbon,” said representative Ruth Balser, a Democrat from Newton and co-sponsor of the bill. Balser said that the law also requires notifying the public and the Environment Affairs Office before a town, a city or the state wants to change the status of protected land. Before, the process was done mainly through the legislature, which was a requirement instituted by Article 97.
“What's good about that is that it would give the Environmental Office the opportunity to work with communities to help them find alternatives,” she said. The law requires an analysis of alternatives mapping out construction of the same project without compromising conservation land. Balser said that she had recently learned that in some cases developers made a cash payment, but it's unclear if the funds were ever used to purchase replacement land. The law introduces conditions to any cash payments, requiring the purchase of equivalent replacement land within three years.
"We shouldn't look at them as a piggy bank to raid every time we need to build something new.”
Robb Johnson, executive director of the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition, who has been advocating for the bill, said that communities have ongoing needs to build, but that constructing on conservation land shouldn’t always be allowed. He pointed out he has seen conservation land converted into roads, schools, and even parking lots. For example, he said a land exchange at the Blue Hills reservation took conservation land to create a parking lot for a nearby restaurant. “If we created parks and conservation land specifically for that purpose," he said, "we shouldn't look at them as a piggy bank to raid every time we need to build something new.”
all that sounds very optimistic .... until you confront the real interests behind it, the people who profit from acquiring cheap useless low valued land handed over by defaulting individuals and communities for preservation.... to push their financial interests, like lucrative (?) racetracks, parking lots for their casinos and taxpayer subsidies for horse rescue organizations. metoo are the ambulance ems unions who want a sinecure.
be aware! democracy is a two edged sword and it contains a suicide pill.