The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Limerick puts open space tax question on November ballot
Earned income tax would rise quarter-percent if approved by voters
LIMERICK » Voters in the township will find a little something extra on their ballots in November.
It is a question that will ask if they are willing to have a little something extra taken out of their paycheck to help preserve open space in the township.
At the May 24 meeting, township supervisors voted unanimously to put the question onto the ballot. The language asks if voters are willing to have an additional quarter percent (.25%) added to the township’s earned income tax for a limited 10-year period. That period would extend from Jan. 1, 2023 until Dec. 31, 2032.
The money collected could only be used for the purchase of open space, agricultural and forest conservations easements; for acquiring property development rights; or for acquiring certain recreation of historic lands.
Those “certain lands” have been identified in the township’s updated master plan, completed in January.
Overall, Limerick has about 15,000 acres of open space, not all of it protected. Some is agricultural land, some is parks, some is golf courses.
The township owns about 3 percent of Limerick’s protected open space; Montgomery County owns about 4 percent, and 3.3 percent is preserved state game lands.
A voluntary citizens advisory panel began meetings on the plan update in 2019, but, like so many things, COVID-19 threw a wrench into those plans and the draft was not completed and presented to the supervisors’ board until June 2021. It was revised as a result of supervisor comments and presented and adopted in January.
The planners developed a matrix, a way to score the value of undeveloped parcels with an eye toward identifying the more valuable parcels in the township’s official open space plan.
Putting the parcels on the plan does not preserve them, but gives the township “a seat at the table” with developers and willing owners. Having those parcels as part of the official plan also makes it easier to seek grant funding for their protection.
The plan identifies 33 parcels as worthy of consideration, two of which are part of the previous plan, for a total of 1,111 acres.
The plan prioritizes four parcels of open space along the Schuylkill River; four parcels along the Brook/Evans Creek greenway in Linfield to make a connection to the river; another four parcels to form a greenway between the Stone Hill Reserve
and sunrise Mill Park in the northern part of the township and agricultural farmland in need of protection.
Nearly 600 residents responded to a survey about what priorities they would like to see for open space preservation as part of the open space plan’s creation.
More than 80 percent of those township residents who responded to the poll said they believe the township needs to preserve more open space. The poll showed 54 percent of those responding believe there is adequate open space in close proximity to where they live. But 82 percent believe more open space needs to be preserved in the township overall.
Natural and passive recreation areas, and trails, were the clear favorites when those same residents were asked to prioritize the kind of open space they would like to see preserved, with athletic and playground areas bringing up a distant third and fourth.
Only 49 percent of those polled said they would be willing to support an increase to the township’s earned income tax to support the protection and maintenance of new open space areas.
And only 31 percent said clearly they would not support such a tax while 20 percent responded: “don’t know.”
It remains to be seen if the results of that poll will be reflected at the polls in November.