Governor Malloy’s Proposal to Empty the Community Investment Act Fund Would Devastate Conservation in Connecticut
The Mill River Park and Greenway in Stamford benefited from Community Investment Act funds. Connecticut Audubon Society photo.
Connecticut Audubon Society has been expressing its opposition to Governor Malloy’s proposal to sweep funds from the Community Investment Act in op-eds published throughout the state. We urge you to contact your state Senator and Representative and send this message:
“Because of the reasons explained in Connecticut Audubon Society’s recently published op-ed, we urge you to oppose Governor Malloy’s proposal to sweep funds from the Community Investment Act and to express your opposition to the leadership of your House. The projects funded by the Community Investment Act – land protection, affordable housing, farmland protection, and historic preservation – are essential to Connecticut’s future.
You can learn how to contact your representative here. Here is the version of the op-ed that was published in the Connecticut Post, Danbury News Times, Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time.
Governor Malloy’s Proposal to Empty the Community Investment Act Fund Would Devastate Conservation in Connecticut
By Alexander Brash
President
Connecticut Audubon Society
The applause for Gov. Dan Malloy was loud in 2012 when he announced that $171,000 in state funds would help Bridgeport create a 1.5-acre community garden on the appropriately named Garden Street.
Likewise, the praise was well-deserved when he announced in 2014 that a state grant of $264,000 would help Stamford acquire easements for access and habitat restoration for the three-mile long Mill River Park and Greenway.
Money for those projects came from the state’s Community Investment Act, which since 2005 has provided funding for 1,100 projects, permanently protecting 7,500 acres of open space and community gardens. In the last two grant cycles alone, 57 communities have received state funds for habitat protection, trail access, drinking water protection, community gardens and many more.
Unfortunately Governor Malloy’s proposed 2015-16 budget, unveiled February 18, includes cuts and fund diversions that will empty the Community Investment Act. We cannot over-emphasize the devastating impact this will have on this state’s beauty, bio-diversity, and ultimately economic vitality.
Preserving and protecting our state’s forests, meadows, brooks, and salt-marshes is critical, both because these natural resources are of great value and because morally it is the right thing to do. These “wildscapes” filter and clean our water, capture carbon, buffer our communities, and serve as home to Connecticut’s many plants and animals.
Open spaces, whether as wild tracts or city parks, define the quality-of-life elements that retain our citizens or attract new ones to the region. As planners have learned, in today’s connected but mobile society, working people are ever more likely to move to a city or certain suburbs for their quality of life benefits. Witness the popularity of Seattle and San Antonio versus Detroit or St. Louis.
Funds collected through the Community Investment Act originate as real estate recording fees at the municipal level, and are dedicated to land conservation, agricultural preservation, affordable housing, historic preservation and brownfields restoration. Stripping these funds from their intended use will do far greater immediate and long-term economic damage to our state, than any good they may do to plug a budget gap.
Just as the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is revising the Green Plan and guiding the state toward the goal of preserving 21 percent of the land in Connecticut by 2023, the governor’s proposal is to take the $15 million that is in the Community Investment Act now and the $40 million that will be collected through 2017, and use it to pay the state’s bills.
The Governor’s campaign pledge was to make $7.5 million in grants per year for open space preservation, using Community Investment Act Funds. All of that would have been used to match private investments in open space preservation and will now be lost – a very short-sighted move with respect to the value of leveraging partnerships and private funds.
So for a savings of $55 million, the Governor’s proposal will strip out another $22.5 million in leveraged private philanthropy and sacrifice the enhancement of the very quality of life values that continue to make this state competitive and attractive to both corporations and citizens.
The best time to acquire and preserve conservation land is always now. As the state’s economy strengthens and the pace of real estate development picks up, critical habitats in all areas of Connecticut will be threatened. The Governor’s budget cuts, if enacted, will eliminate the most important preservation tool and make the loss of those critical habitats all but inevitable.
The applause was loud in 2012 and 2014. The roar of disapproval should be equally loud now. We urge the state’s General Assembly to restore full funding to the Community Investment Act.
