By Joe Creason

On Thursday, May 20, the Somerville City Council’s Legislative Matters Committee meeting began with a discussion on the proposal to draft a PILOT ordinance. This effort is inspired by the PILOT ordinance which is currently being implemented by the City of Boston.

The proposed Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) ordinance draft looks to establish a Task Force which will formalize a fair and transparent annual reporting procedure, that would see larger non-profit organizations pay a determined amount of the taxes that would be due if they were not designated as non-profits.

Though large academic, medical and scientific institutions are labeled with the designation of non-profit, the owners of these tax-exempt properties accrue benefits in the form of city services, infrastructure and amenities.

Similar to the Boston PILOT ordinance, non-profit entities owning tax-exempt property valued at $15 million or higher in Somerville would have to submit an annual report to the PILOT program Task Force.

The PILOT ordinance draft presented at Thursday’s meeting differed from the expectations of some councilors which were established in discussions from previous meetings about the proposed legislation and raised several questions.

“This ordinance simply creates a Task Force to study the issue and doesn’t mention the 20% tax as a presumed threshold, or mandate anything like we discussed,” said Ward Five Councilor Mark Niedergang.

The Purpose of the Task Force is to make recommendations for a more equitable and consistent PILOT program which takes the community into consideration, and compensates the city for lost revenue from tax-exempt properties.

“There is no mandate that the city can impose under the law for penalty of taxes on non-profit organizations,” said Assistant City Solicitor David Shapiro.

In addition, some key distinctions between the Boston ordinance and the Somerville draft were noted by the council.

“Looking at the Boston ordinance, there are some pretty significant differences on how the Task Force would be constructed, if someone could point out the reasoning there?” Ward Six Councilor Lance Davis asked.

With regards to the composition of community members on the PILOT Task Force, the Boston ordinance differs from the proposed Somerville draft in that the mayor of Boston, the Council President of the City of Boston, the PILOT Action Group and neighborhood groups representing areas with substantial amounts of tax-exempt property all get to nominate two representatives from the community to be on the PILOT Task Force.

The medical, academic and scientific community is also given a representative member on the Task Force in Boston.

This is in comparison to the Somerville PILOT Task Force that is only set to seat three non-government community members, which will be appointees from the mayor, City Council and School Committee chair respectively.

“We’re asking for a function similar to what is in the Boston ordinance, which is that two seats be authorized by community groups who have been working on this issue,” said Mary Anne Wells.

Though councilors voiced their support over the question of community involvement in comparison with Boston’s ordinance, this policy outcome did not appear to be in line with Somerville’s past approaches to similar situations.

“As a practical matter, having those on a task force from a particular specified group is not typically what we have done with task forces,” Assistant Solicitor Shapiro said. “We typically would look for those who have qualifications and expertise in a wide range of areas, not just from a designated group.”

The PILOT ordinance was kept in committee for further discussion. If approved, the Task Force is set to meet on a regular quarterly basis.

In other business, the Council reviewed a request from the mayor to approve a surveillance technology impact report from the Office of Strategic Planning and Community Development (OSPCD).

The OSPCD will be owning and operating a set of small drones for their audio and video capabilities. “What we use the drones for is aerial photography for neighborhood planning,” said Director of Planning and Zoning Sarah Lewis.

The drones have been used to photograph the outdoor dining layout of Davis Square. According to Lewis, FAA license holder Victor Nascimento will be the primary drone operator.

“They’re only used at higher elevations so we can see things like urban form and the network of streets. We’re looking at urban scale, not zooming in on people,” Director Lewis said.

Images captured by drones will not be shared with the Somerville Police Department. The City Council voted to approve the mayor’s request.