Extension Update
Extension Specialist Charlie French serves on a statewide roundtable that recently drafted new legislation called the Housing and Conservation Planning Program (SB 217), which Governor John Lynch signed on Friday at the State House. The round table was spearheaded by the NH Charitable Foundation. The group was charged with bringing together the often disparate interests of conservation and affordable housing to collaboratively address both local housing and conservation needs in communities.
French was involved in the early part of the process before the group decided to take the route of drafting the legislation. He has since rejoined the group, primarily to serve the role as technical assistance provider.
Managing growth at the municipal level has created conflicting pressures for local leaders, protecting the area's natural resources and character, while meeting the housing needs of current and future residents.
"The grants will help municipalities plan for local workforce housing while conserving natural resources and preserving historic structures," said Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, a key proponent of the bill. "As young professionals, firefighters, teachers, and health care workers make longer commutes from outside of town to find suitable housing, we lose them as part of our community fabric. Existing development patterns are also threatening natural and historic resources."
The Growth and Development Roundtable, a broad coalition of business, conservation, housing, municipal, and planning interests, advocated for this incentive-based program to give communities the ability to plan for housing and conservation through a unified planning strategy.
"The unrelenting pressures of growth on communities make it very hard for local leaders to protect a community's natural resources and character, while meeting the needs for affordable housing. This Roundtable found immediate common ground in the belief that our state cannot sustain its growth rate and maintain its character by doing more of what worked in the past," said Lew Feldstein, president of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation.
Posted September 4, 2007