CPA Adoption Update: Lowell Passes Adoption as the 176th CPA Community

It's official: the city of Lowell is now the 176th community to successfully adopt CPA. Lowell was the first and only community to attempt CPA adoption this year after the city council unanimously approved of placing the question on the November ballot - meaning all adoption campaigns since 2018 have had a 100% success rate!

Residents in Lowell were clearly enthusiastic about becoming the next gateway city to implement CPA - the question passed at the ballot with a 58% majority vote (5018 voted YES, 3646 voted NO). The city will now adopt a 1% CPA surcharge with exemptions for the first $100,000 of residential property value, full commercial property value, and low income and low and moderate income senior homeowners. Their local surcharge is expected to raise approximately $700,000 annually, with additional funding coming from the the annual distributions from the statewide Community Preservation Trust Fund.

While this wraps up the CPA campaign season for 2019, the Coalition is expecting big things to happen as we approach the upcoming presidential election a year from now. The town of West Stockbridge has already voted to place the question of CPA adoption on their spring 2020 election, and in the last week, the town of Ayer voted to add a ballot question to increase their surcharge from 1% to 3%, also occuring next spring. More communities will likely be considering adoption campaigns or surcharge changes over the next several months, so be sure to keep an eye on our CPA Elections page for all future updates.