Council approves $1.5 million for 17 Community Preservation Act projects

She said CPA funds are meant for things the whole community can enjoy and didn’t “see how the community is going to benefit from the restoration of a lighthouse and a private house.”
Mass Light, a nonprofit formed in 2016 to preserve Butler Flats, acquired the lighthouse from the government in 2017. The CPA funds would go to the stabilization and repair of the base of the lighthouse and the concrete deck, according to Mass Light’s application.
Councilors Joseph Lopes, Hugh Dunn, Dana Rebeiro, and Ian Abreu spoke in favor of funding restoration of the house on Seventh Street because it would “restore the aesthetics of their neighborhood” and “improve the walkability of the city.”
The project at 29 Seventh St. is a residential home in the city’s Abolition Row neighborhood that has been abandoned for years. Through the Attorney General’s Abandoned Housing Initiative, 29 Seventh Street LLC — through Lanagan & Co. — has been granted the rights to fully restore the home, according to its CPA application.
The Federal-style home built around 1807 was once owned by whaling Captain John Congdon.
Ultimately Carney’s motion to cut the items from the funding order failed and the funding for both projects and the other 15 were approved.
Other notable projects were $150,000 to restore the Strand Theater as a Cape Verdean cultural center and $125,000 for the Fort Taber Terreplein Study.
The study at Fort Taber is “to create detailed design-bid-build construction bid drawings of the earthen roof to delineate the specific scope of work and cost estimate for repair. These documents will allow us to solicit funding and go out to bid for a professional company to address the structural concerns with the stone fort,” according to the CPA application.
“The earthen roof, referred to as a terreplein, is an interesting feature of the fort. There are three hidden magazine rooms under the mounds on the terreplein, and three structures on top of the terreplein – a lighthouse, a fire control tower, and a search light shed.”
Currently the fort is not accessible to the public because of safety concerns.