SWANSEA — Conservation Agent Colleen Brown said the town will generate $363,000 for the Community Preservation fund this year from its 1.5 percent surcharge on property taxes.

The state will also provide matching funds to a certain percentage of those funds. The amount the state will provide has not been determined yet.

There are four CPA projects proposed for this year that include $5,000 to paint the wooden trim on the exterior of the library for historic preservation, $28,000 for work on the roof and painting the trim of the Grange building, $850,000 to purchase the Medeiros Farm and $700,000 to purchase 36 acres of land off Old Fall River Road. Money would be borrowed to purchase the land.

The town is required to spend at least 10 percent of its CPA funds on open space preservation, historic preservation and affordable housing. Up to five percent can be spent on the administration of the program. The other 65 percent can be spent on any of those three categories. Recreation facility improvements are considered part of open space preservation. Money can be carried over from year to year, but the at least 10 percent has to stay in that category.

Brown said next year is the final year that the town will be making payments on the Baker Farm that was purchased with CPA money.

The Community Preservation Committee met with the selectmen to discuss its projects for this year's Annual Town Meeting where residents will vote on them. Selectmen Christopher Carreiro said the town has not spent a lot of money on housing. Brown said that $175,000 was spent on the Swansea Housing Authority which provides apartments for the elderly and the disabled. Brown said the Community Preservation Committee has been trying to find uses for the housing money since 2009.

Community Preservation Committee member Robbie Alford said that grants could be offered to help low income families purchase affordable housing.

Brown said a housing trust could be created that would be a protection against 40B affordable housing being built in town. Carreiro said there have been a lot of 40B proposals in Swansea that haven't come to fruition. If a town does not have at least 10 percent affordable housing, developers who propose it can bypass some of its zoning bylaws and other requirements.

Carreiro said there has been an uptick in the amount of matching funds that the state would provide to the CPA fund in the last six months, but said it would be not near the level that the match was at when the town first adopted the Community Preservation Act.

Brown said there was a need for the Community Preservation Act funds when the Town Hall needed repairs, historic buildings needed to be fixed and open space was disappearing. She said there was no mechanism to pay for those projects before the town adopted the CPA at an election. She gave the selectmen a list of projects that have been paid for with CPA funds during the last nine years.

The CPA was adopted in Swansea at an election in 2008, the town started generating funds from it in 2009 and began spending the funds in 2010. Alford said the state has increased the amount of revenue from the Registry of Deeds that will go towards the CPA.

Carreiro said the state is looking at an increase in the CPA matching funds to bring them up to 25 percent, but with the numbers he has looked at, said the match has been down to 12 percent. He said he supported the program because he thought the match would be 40 to 50 percent which it was in the beginning of the program. He said he is disappointed the state match has gone down. Alford said it was explained when the town adopted the CPA that the matching funds would go down as more towns and cities joined the program. He said there was one year when Swansea received 47 percent matching funds.

Alford said the money is for projects the town never had money to fund before, such as for the Veterans' Memorial Green and Swansea Little League fields. He said it is a good program that allows the town to make purchases without affecting town budgets.

With the amount of matching funds the town receives, Carreiro said he does not like being restricted to only being able to use the funds for three uses. Selectman Derek Heim said Carreiro has appreciated being able to preserve open space. Noting the most recent state matching funds, Selectmen Chairman Steven Kitchin said he can't find investments where he gets a 17 percent return on his money. He said taxpayers would have paid more for the projects that have been funded with CPA funds if the town did not adopt the program. Of the CPA projects that have been done in Swansea, he said there is not one that he would not have done.

Kitchin said it sounds like his board will support all four of those projects. The final decisions will be with Annual Town Meeting voters.