"We're certainly convinced there's a need for a land bank," Fenn says. "Even our opponents came out and said [there's a need]."

Susan Nickersen of the Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod puts the failure of the Cape bill in perspective.

"The problem is the funding mechanism, not the bill," she says.

Indeed, State Rep. Thomas George (R-Yarmouth), the one Cape legislator who opposed the measure, also says he believes in land banks.

However, George says that activities should be governed on a town-by-town, rather than a county or state basis, because the locals know where they want to place the emphasis. Furthermore, he says that the locals should pay for it themselves.

While acknowledging that there was an exemption on the first $100,000 of the sale price, George insists that "a good number" of his constituents are "elderly, retired and on a limited income" and that having a sales tax would hit them hard.

"The proponents lost sight of the fact that 300, 400, 500 dollars mean a lot to these people. People can't afford to pay it to some charity, especially when moving out. The majority of these people moveoff-Cape, maybe off-state. Why should they leave alump sum of money as a thankyou?" George asks.

Will it Make A Difference?

The central question which arises from thecontroversy is how useful trying to pass such realestate taxes would actually be toward addressingsuch issues as preservation of open space andlow-income housing.

On this issue, there is some consensus betweenthe opponents and the proponents of the realestate transfer bills.

John Dulczewski, the communications director ofthe Massachusetts Association of Realtors, forone, does not believe that the transfer tax is arealistic way to pay for open space or low-incomehousing.

"Real estate is a traditionally cyclicalmarket, it's not ideal if you're looking to have asteady stream of funding. So the amount of revenuefrom the tax might be okay sometimes, but not atother times," Dulczewski says.

Draining The Hourglass

While legislators and activists scramble toreposition in the aftermath of the land bank billfailure, both the Cape and Cambridge's low-incomehousing crisis continue to grow.

According to Turkington, 10,000 acres have beendeveloped on the Cape since 1990. At the sametime, the Cape Cod's 15 towns were only able toset aside 800 acres.

"We're the fastest growing area of the state,and have been for a couple of decades," he says."At the rate we're going, within 30 to 40 years,we won't be having this discussion [about openspace] because we won't have anything to save."