What is Smart Growth for New Hampshire?
Smart growth does not mean no growth. It’s about increasing choices - opportunities to meet community and regional needs for housing, employment, goods and services, and quality of life through more efficient, creative development. Smart growth is about conserving and making the best use of our vital natural and cultural resources. It is about enhancing the choices and opportunities for present and future generations of Granite State residents. Smart growth does not demand a particular solution, but rather an approach that considers and appreciates the essential qualities and features of a community as it moves forward.
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Irving Station, Meredith
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Sense of Place
At a time when much of our country is blurring into homogenized sameness, New Hampshire can capitalize on its distinctive natural and built heritage. Smart growth can help to retain the natural and human-made places that connect us to our history and give each New Hampshire community its character. Taking the time to plan what values and places we want to retain, where we want growth to occur, and what it should look like, has the potential to give all of us even greater pride in our communities. We can retain the distinctive character of our New Hampshire communities if we provide for development that protects and is compatible with the special places and values of each town. |
Chase House - Mill Falls, Meredith
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Sense of Community
Smart growth will strengthen communities. The principles of smart growth draw on the willingness of people to volunteer, to get involved and take responsibility for which New Hampshire is famous. Smart growth requires members of a community to work together to make it a better place to live, work, and raise a family. People will consider the physical and social factors that shape the ways members of the community interact - how and where people gather, shop, vote, work, learn, celebrate, and play.
Sense of Economy
The way a community shapes public policy, and how its members participate in decision-making, will direct smart growth in each community. Smart growth does not require spending more, but spending in a manner that links sound investment with sound policy. Smart growth seeks efficient use of resources. Smart growth will express the aspirations for the community, and the values of residents and taxpayers.
Finding a Place for People
How can we grow, and still maintain our traditional communities and landscapes? How can we absorb and gain from continuing growth in our state, while maintaining the character and quality of life that make New Hampshire such a desirable place to live, work, and visit? New Hampshire is such a great place to raise a family or start a business because of the state’s strong communities and ethic of civic responsibility, developed over generations in this place of scenic beauty and natural resource wealth. In reaction to the loss of community character and scenic landscape to cookie-cutter commercial strip development and look-alike subdivisions, many residents vociferously oppose new development in their neighborhoods and towns. In the wake of rapid growth, many people experience a sense of loss, and resist further change. Growth and change may be welcomed for the positive economic opportunities they afford, but feared for the loss of control and loss of the traditional character - built and natural - of our communities and state.
Understandable reactions of fear have driven many well-intentioned efforts to regulate growth. But all too often the resulting regulations have proven to be blueprints for sprawl. In his book, Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century, James Howard Kunstler argues that the existing consensus of fear that has shaped our zoning and development regulations is not good enough. "We need a consensus of hope," he proposes.
While our master plans sing the praises of the traditional character of our communities, most of our zoning ordinances prohibit traditional patterns of development. The trademark New Hampshire development patterns - compact, denser settlement in town or village centers with more rural areas of farms, forests, and less densely built homes and businesses in surrounding environs - were established long before the invention of zoning. Downtowns and village centers were typically a mix of land uses, including community institutions and public buildings, a variety of businesses, and diverse types of residences.
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