-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Landman [mailto:rlandman@hlinstruments.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2002 3:22 PM
To: plan-link
Subject: [Plan-link] architectural design standards
Colleagues,
Our planning board is considering design standards and one of the members asked me if I had heard of any legal problems with them. I replied I had not and that I had been to a planning board meeting in Stratham where an applicant had his lawyer representing him and the lawyer was agreeing to all the requirements (he was chafing a little bit but the board held fast).
Got any war stories to share? Advice as to what not to doas it won't hold up in court? We have Route 1 as our business cooridor and it's looking pretty shabby. Auto row with very little landscaping. The dealers don't want any landscaping interior to their lots. Just acres of balcktop and detention ponds that look like Boulder Dam. Home Depot came in and did their usual orange awnings and cinderblock and didn't count the orange awning as a sign so ignored the sign dimensions ordinance. The Outlet mall was overhauled but basically other than new blacktop and new light poles that light up the sky like Fenway it's pretty unimaginative. All the parking in front with the stores at the rear in a monolith so the signs have to be BIG so they can be read at Route 1 (driveby shoppers gaze into the mall to read signs on the buildings?).
Bob Landman
Town of North Hampton
Seacoast MPO/RPC Commissioner
http://www.north-hampton-nh.com/
http://www.rpc-nh.org/
PO Box 580
North Hampton, NH 03862-0580
(tel) 603-964-1899 (fax) 603-964-8881
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-----Reply-----
From: Chris Northrop
Sent: Thursday, July 18, 2002
To: plan-link
Subject: [Plan-link] architectural design standards
I don't know if this is really germane to the issue but in ASSELIN, dba MARIO'S RESTAURANT v TOWN OF CONWAY 135 N.H. 576, 607 A.2d 132 (1992) the NH Supreme Court upheld the ability of a town to regulate the manner of lighting of a sign, particularly upholding, as not violate of the constitution, Conway's ban on internally lighted signs. Of much greater importance, however, was the fact that the court clearly upheld the right of the town to zone exclusively for aesthetic purposes: "....We now conclude the municipalities may validly exercise zoning power solely (underlined) to advance aesthetic values, because the preservation or enhancement of the visual environment may promote the general welfare ...." (citing RSA 674:16 and OPINION OF THE JUSTICES, 103 NH 268)
Christopher L. Northrop, AICP
NH Office of Energy and Planning
57 Regional Drive, Suite 3
Concord, NH 03301
603.271.2155
Chris.Northrop@NH.Gov
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