Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Agriculture Preservation topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Dartmouth planning board presses for legal clarity on Ag Preservation Fund MOU as Ag Commission seeks advisory seat
Summary
Members questioned whether a proposed memorandum of understanding would bind future boards and whether the town or Ag Commission controls how $1.5 million in CPA funds will be used. Agricultural Commission representative Susan Murray said the fund is intended to leverage partners and protect working farms but final MOU language is pending town-council review.
Susan Murray, owner of Flying Carrot Farm and a member of the Agricultural Commission, told the Dartmouth Planning Board on July 13 that the town’s new Agricultural Preservation Fund — created with $1,500,000 in Community Preservation Act (CPA) money approved at town meeting — is designed to help preserve working farmland by partnering with conservation organizations and placing conservation or agricultural-preservation restrictions on properties.
"The agricultural commission actually controls the fund and makes the final decisions," Murray said, describing a proposed memorandum of understanding that would create an advisory group to bring representatives from other boards into decision-making. She said the commission is working with partners including DNRT, the Mass. Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) and the Buzzards Bay Coalition to leverage the fund.
Several planning board members pressed Murray on whether the MOU had been drafted by town council or the Ag Commission and on whether signing an MOU would create a binding precedent for future boards. "Is the memorandum of understanding an instrument that the AdCom has decided to employ, or is that a legal requirement?" one member asked, warning that an MOU could be perceived as legally binding and could implicate board members’ signatures and future obligations.
Murray said the Ag Commission, with assistance from the Community Preservation Committee (CPC), drafted the MOU and that she had just received word that it had been sent to town council for review. "We don't have the final MOU till it comes back from town council," she said, and recommended the board consider tabling any formal vote until the town council returns edits.
Board members asked for additional detail on how the fund would be used. Murray said the intent is generally not to buy and hold many properties outright but to work with conservation partners and buy partial interests or place agricultural covenants to reduce land prices and keep land farmed in perpetuity. She explained that MDAR often holds APRs and could enforce monitoring and that private APRs could be held jointly with the town and a partner to provide enforcement and a paper trail for CPA use.
Members also voiced concerns from experience that earlier preservation efforts had at times preserved land that later was not actively farmed. Murray acknowledged the lesson and said the commission’s intent is to prioritize working farms and to explore stronger, written covenants and monitoring funds to ensure long-term agricultural use.
On the question of representation, the chair said the planning board would need to vote to designate a representative for the advisory group (the packet referenced a planning-board representative). Several board members said they wanted to wait to see the final MOU and the CPC’s version of the document before taking a formal vote on an appointment.
The planning board did not take a final vote on adopting or signing the MOU on July 13; Murray said she would return feedback to the Ag Commission and to town council and encouraged continued conversation between the board and the commission. The board will revisit the matter after town council and CPC provide their final documents.
