In the video above, MAPC Government Affairs Specialist Steve Byrne discusses MAPC’s legislative priorities.
Every legislative session, the government affairs team monitors legislative action on Beacon Hill, identifying, following and advocating for bills and budget items likely to affect MAPC and those living and working in the MAPC region. The team compiles a list of legislative priorities for the agency and produces fact sheets on each of them. You can read the fact sheets here.
Right now, MAPC has identified seven bills as legislative priorities, several of which Byrne discusses in the video. Throughout the legislative session, MAPC takes positions on additional bills. To briefly recap, MAPC is advocating for the passage of the following bills:
- An Act relative to regional transportation ballot initiatives (S.1551 and H.1640) – This would enable municipalities to raise local revenue for transportation projects via ballot initiatives.
- An Act relative to transportation infrastructure value capture (H.1893) – This legislation codifies a process for capturing increased value along transportation corridors for transit, roadway, and TOD development
- An Act building for the future of the Commonwealth (H.2422) and An Act promoting housing and sustainable development (S.81) – These would give municipalities more flexibility in terms of land use and permitting, so they can more easily change select local regulations to meet economic development, housing, and natural resource protection goals.
- An Act relative to the transparency of municipal energy data (S. 1858 and H.3386) – This would create a system that would allow municipalities to request energy consumption and usage data from utilities and receive it in consistent manner.
- An Act authorizing resiliency measures under commercial property assessed clean energy (S.1825 and H. 2687) – This would allow property owners to finance microgrids and other resiliency measures under the Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy program.
- An Act to sustain community preservation revenue (S.1504 and H.2615) – This would increase dedicated funding to provide a 50 percent base match to CPA cities and towns.
- An Act providing for disposition of surplus state real property based on smart growth land use policies (H.1710) – This would reform the surplus land disposition process by streamlining the practice, empowering local communities and key stakeholders, generating revenue for the Commonwealth, and promoting smart growth principles.
To learn more, visit www.mapc.org/legislative-priorities, or contact Government Affairs Manager Lizzi Weyant at [email protected].