HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 4149 FILED ON: 3/20/2009
HOUSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . No. 4013
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The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
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In the Year Two Thousand Nine
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An Act relative to the establishment of cultural districts..
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
SECTION 1. Chapter 10 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 52 the following section:-
Section 52A. The council shall establish criteria and guidelines for state designated cultural districts. A cultural district shall be a well recognized, labeled, mixed-use, compact area of a city or town in which a high concentration of cultural facilities serves as an anchor. The goals of a cultural district shall include attracting artists and cultural enterprises to a community, encouraging business and job development, establishing tourist destinations, preserving and reusing historic buildings, enhancing property values and fostering local cultural development. The Council shall develop a program to prepare a city or town to became home to a state designated cultural district, create an application process and develop qualifying criteria and guidelines. Agencies of the executive branch, constitutional offices and quasi governmental agencies shall identify programs and services that support and enhance the development of cultural districts and assure that they are accessible to such districts.
SECTION 2. The council shall in cooperation with the executive branch, constitutional offices, quasi governmental agencies and the joint committee on tourism, arts and cultural development identify additional and existing state incentives and resources that will enhance state designated cultural districts and shall reports their findings together with drafts of legislation as may be necessary to carry its recommendations into effect by filing same with the clerk of the house of representatives no later than January 1, 2010.