Gov. Charlie Baker inked into law a bill environmental activists have supported for two decades known as the Public Lands Preservation Act. The new law aims to guarantee that the total area of public premises and conservation land does n’t drop.
Massachusetts formerly protects conservation land designated under Composition 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 away to be defended.With the new law, the process becomes obligatory and includes further conditions to estimate whether developing that land is really the stylish option.
It’s a tool for meeting the climate extremity. We need open space to alleviate against flooding. We need it to absorb carbon, ” said representative Ruth Balser, a Democrat from Newton andco-sponsor of the bill.Balser said that the law also requires notifying the public and the Environment Affairs Office before a city, a megacity or the state wants to change the status of defended land. Before, the process was done substantially through the council, which was a demand introduced by Composition 97.4
What is good about that’s that it would give the Environmental Office the occasion to work with communities to help them find druthershe said. The law requires an analysis of druthers
mapping out construction of the same design without compromising conservation land.Balser said that she had lately learned that in some cases inventors made a cash payment, but it’s unclear if the finances were ever used to buy relief land. The law introduces conditions to any cash payments, taking the purchase of original relief land within three times.
Robb Johnson, administrative director of the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition, who has been championing for the bill, said that communities have ongoing requirements to make, but that constructing on conservation land should n’t always be allowed.
He refocused out he has seen conservation land converted into roads
seminaries, and indeed parking lots. For illustration, he said a land exchange at the Blue Hills reservation took conservation land to produce a parking lot for a near eatery.still,” he said,” we should not look at them as a piggy bank to raid every time we need to make commodity new, “ If we created premises and conservation land specifically for that purpose. ”