Columbus, Ohio, one of several cities approving parks funding

Yesterday capped off a record-breaking year for voters demonstrating support for open space ballot measures, despite the current economic situation. With help from TPL’s Andrew DuMoulin in the Conservation Finance program, we’ve got the following information.

On November 4th, voters backed 62 of 87 (71%) conservation finance ballot measures, which will generate a single-day record of $7.3 billion in new funding for parks and open space lands.  Overall in 2008, voters approved 88 measures totaling $8.4 billion in new public funding for land conservation, a single year record.  The approval rate for 2008 was 71% topping the 66% approval rate for 2007 and just below the 74% rate for 2006.  The record setting amount of funding for 2008 can largely be attributed to the Minnesota Clean Water, Land and Legacy constitutional amendment, which totaled $5.5 billion (a single measure record). The Minnesota measure will fund everything from wildlife habitat protection to city parks. Among the other significant measures yesterday (not necessarily all cities) for land acquistion were:

• East Bay Regional Park District (CA): A $500 million bond measure that received 71% support
• Hillsborough County, Florida: A $200 million bond measure that received 78% support
• Hunterdon County, New Jersey: An extension of the county’ 3-cent property tax for 20 years, which will generate $152 million
• Community Preservation Act elections in Massachusetts — 7 of 8 measures were approved, bringing the total of communities statewide that have adopted CPA to 140; and
• Blaine County, ID: A 2-year property tax for open space.

Then there’s a few ballot measures in cities that will fund either capital improvements or increases in maintenance funds. Milwaukee passed a sales tax increase, that now needs approval of the state legislatures, to increase funding for park maintenance. Seattle appears to have passed a $146 million measure for a continued property tax for capital improvements and new parks, Columbus, Ohio $124 million and Mecklenburg County (Charlotte, N.C.) $250 million bond for parks and recreation.

Milwaukee park

A few big cities are trying to pass large bond measures to fund parks and recreation capital costs (acquisition, development and/or improvements) and we’ll watch for what happens on election day. Charlotte/Mecklenburg County has a $250 bond for parks up for consideration. Columbus, Ohio has a $124 million referendum. Seattle, Washington one for $145 million. And Long Beach, Calif., Corpus Christi and Greensboro, N.C. are also looking at them.

In Milwaukee, a question about how much money should go to parks will go to voters, who will decide on whether they want to fund parks, transit and some property tax relief in Milwaukee County through an additional 1% sales tax. Milwaukee currently spends $49 per resident on its parks, well below the $91 dollar average of the nation’s 75 largest cities. And this dedicated funding stream would bring it up a bit in the rankings. A local group, the Quality of Life Alliance has a website with more information on the effort. (We’ll come back after the election and let everyone know what happened, and we’ll also do a review of other cities using the sales tax for parks.)

Those interested in an extensive list of municipalities and other levels of government with voter referendums for parks and conservation can do so through TPL’s Conservation Finance program’s www.landvote.org.