The information contained in this article is not intended as legal advice and may no longer be accurate due to changes in the law. Consult NHMA's legal services or your municipal attorney.
At its core, land use planning plays an integral role in helping New Hampshire adapt to housing, transportation, economic development challenges and opportunities. Regional Planning Commissions help communities by ensuring they are not alone in their planning endeavors.
New Hampshire’s nine Regional Planning Commissions (RPCs) were established by state legislation in 1969 and serve in an advisory role to their member municipalities. RPCs support local municipalities in their planning and community development responsibilities through collaboration, development of regional plans and resources, and local planning assistance. Services include master planning, zoning and land use regulation, circuit riding, transportation planning, bicycle and pedestrian counting, hazard mitigation planning, housing build-out and suitability analyses, economic development planning, emergency management planning, and water resource planning. Expertise within the RPCs affords a depth of professional staff capacity that would otherwise be unattainable for many if not most of New Hampshire’s smaller communities. The Commissions also serve as a mechanism for intermunicipal collaboration, learning, and opportunity to collectively leverage resources. In a nutshell, investment in regional planning can yield dividends.
At Strafford Regional Planning Commission (SRPC) municipal dues make up a small portion of the overall budget and the majority are used to match or leverage other funds. For every $1 in dues, SRPC generates $9 in other funding. This multiplies the resources available to support local and regional efforts ranging from free engineering services to develop transportation improvements and offsetting local costs for master plan updates. As staff build relationships with municipalities, particularly through contract planner or circuit rider services, SRPC has been able to successfully obtain grants for the community. In one community, grant funds awarded totaled more than 7 times the community’s contract costs for a staff planner, providing much needed resources to address stormwater drainage, community facility assessments, and brownfield environmental assessments.
The Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission (UVLSRPC) has benefited communities by offering a diverse range of services at a lower cost, enabling municipalities to access specialized expertise without the financial burden of hiring full-time staff. UVLSRPC's extensive network of professionals and stakeholders enhances collaboration and resource sharing, while its strong relationships with State and Federal agencies connect
the region’s smallest communities to valuable resources.
Since the primary goal of Regional Planning Commissions is to serve the community rather than generate profit, planning initiatives are more likely to align with public interests and needs. Similar to SRPC, municipal dues, which constitute 7.5% of UVLSRPC’s budget, are effectively used to leverage funding opportunities, bringing additional resources to the region. Over the past five years, UVLSRPC has significantly increased its efforts to boost staff knowledge and capacity at the municipal level by staffing boards, training volunteers and municipal staff, and serving as on-call experts in planning, housing, resiliency, and transportation.
North Country Council (NCC) utilizes its municipal dues to support all its planning programs and to leverage larger pools of funds that staff use to provide technical assistance to their member communities in community planning, transportation planning, environmental planning and economic development. Several recent programs were directly supported with municipal dues. NCC hosted a free Housing Webinar in which participants were provided with essential knowledge and the steps to take to create a welcoming space for family members or to generate rental income while addressing the housing crisis.
NCC's traffic calming pop-up project in Bethlehem was developed to build upon previous studies and plans focused on increasing the safety and livability of Bethlehem’s Main Street. The overarching goal of this project was to improve the safety of vehicles, pedestrians, and cyclists through town by reducing speeds and increasing the visibility of pedestrian crossings and intersections.
Griffin Park, Windham, NH
NCC also developed a Funding Resource Hub where individuals, not just in the North Country, can discover grants or other funding opportunities
for NH communities, non-profits, and businesses. (https://grants-and-funding-opportunitiesnccouncil.hub.arcgis.com/) Southern NH Planning Commission has provided grant assistance that has resulted in millions of dollars of awards, critical staffing support in several communities’ planning offices, and opportunities for communities to work within unique programs including Pathways to Play, funded through New Hampshire Children’s
Health Foundation. One of the goals of this project was to improve information about recreation throughout the region. SNHPC developed an interactive map so that area residents, agencies and others could discover recreation resources in the area and how they might walk, ride a bike or use transit to get to their play space destinations.
Accessibility emerged as a top project priority – with the aspiration that everyone, regardless of age or ability, can enjoy the benefits of play and outdoor activities. SNHPC also worked with New Boston to develop strategies for improving play areas to support a diverse cross-section of visitors – including people with mobility challenges, individuals with physical or cognitive differences, families with young children, and seniors. To gather inspiration, SHNHPC connected New Boston stakeholders with Town staff from Windham to learn how Windham’s Recreation Department implemented a successful accessible playground project in Griffin Park.
Local Planning Board circuit rider planner assistance and Economic Development Committee support is a key element of the Central NH Regional Planning Commission’s work program in support of their 20 member communities. As requested, CNHRPC staff provide development application reviews, zoning and land use regulation update assistance, Capital Improvement Program (CIP) development and economic development related assistance on topics including Tax Increment Finance (TIF) district development, Economic Revitalization Zones (ERZs) and the Community Revitalization Tax Relief Incentive (NH RSA 79-E). In addition to the services listed above, CNHRPC staff have provided local hazard mitigation plan update assistance to a majority of the Commission’s member communities over the last several years.
Nashua Regional Planning Commission (NRPC) aggressively pursues state and federal grants to help fund initiatives that can address regional needs. In 2020, NRPC was awarded a $300,000 Brownfields Assessment grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and in 2023, NRPC secured an additional $500,000. A brownfield is a property where the use, reuse, or redevelopment of the site may be hindered by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. The program covers the cost of Phase I and Phase II environmental assessments, site investigations and testing, developing remedial action plans and reuse planning.
Redeveloped brownfield site and former school and a newspaper in Milford, NH
With over 100 identified brownfields in the NRPC region, the need to help return these sites to clean, safe and viable new uses is an important part of the region’s economic viability. NRPC has undertaken assessment work on ten sites in four communities. Four of the sites are municipally owned and two were to facilitate the sale of privately owned land to a town for municipal purposes including a DPW facility and a public parking lot. Three sites were targeted for housing or mixed-use redevelopment including the redevelopment of a historic school site, later used to house a local newspaper,
in the Town of Milford. The now completed project brought 18 units of affordable senior housing into the heart of downtown Milford while helping to save an important historic resource.
The heart of planning is implementation. Planners play an important role in advancing implementation strategies by advising local boards and committees on regulations and ordinances, to ensure that residential, commercial, industrial, and public uses of space meet the desired vision of the community.
Regional planning commissions produce results by helping to share good ideas born at the local level to neighboring communities. Each
town is a grassroots laboratory teeming with creative volunteers and innovative staff. However, without an organizational hub, individual towns can spend a lot of time and resources reinventing the wheel. One example of facilitating cross-town communication and peer education comes from Southwest Region Planning Commission (SWRPC), who has provided backbone staff support to the Monadnock Broadband Group, which brings together stakeholders from across the Monadnock Region to develop strategies for expanding broadband connectivity.
The Monadnock Broadband Group serves as an important vehicle for sharing information about what’s come to be known as the “Chesterfield Model” for broadband expansion. The model, pioneered in Chesterfield, NH, involves an innovative public-private partnership incorporating broadband infrastructure bonds, with debt service covered by service subscribers rather than taxpayers. The model has since been used in over a dozen Monadnock
Region towns, making the region a hotbed for rural “gigabit communities” with lightning-fast fiber optic service. In addition to facilitating meetings of the Monadnock Broadband Group, SWRPC also developed the Monadnock Broadband Implementation Guide, which lays out step-by-step how to implement the Chesterfield Model.
The Monadnock Broadband Group serves as an important vehicle for sharing information about what’s come to be known as the “Chesterfield Model” for broadband expansion. The model, pioneered in Chesterfield, NH, involves an innovative public-private partnership incorporating broadband infrastructure bonds, with debt service covered by service subscribers rather than taxpayers. The model has since been used in over a dozen Monadnock
Region towns, making the region a hotbed for rural “gigabit communities” with lightning-fast fiber optic service. In addition to facilitating meetings of the Monadnock Broadband Group, SWRPC also developed the Monadnock Broadband Implementation Guide, which lays out step-by-step how to implement the Chesterfield Model.
In September 2024 the RPC and partner organizations held a ribbon cutting to open the first phase of the Seacoast Greenway.
The takeaway message of this article is planning gets results. Planners take ideas from vision to tangible concept and design, and ultimately shepherd projects through to implementation. The Rockingham Planning Commission (RPC) has worked over the last decade to bring communities together and shape a regional vision and pursue shared goals. A crowning achievement of this work is the opening of the New Hampshire Seacoast Greenway rail trail. The project is a textbook example of sound planning practice leading to success. Projects like the NH Seacoast Greenway result in a safe transportation facility, a linear park, and an economic catalyst for the region that will pay for itself multiple times over.
The NH Seacoast Greenway is New Hampshire’s portion of the East Coast Greenway, envisioned as a non-motorized, multi-use trail extending 3000 miles from Maine to Florida and connecting major cities, small towns, and natural areas along the Eastern Seaboard. The activation of the rail trail and the positive response from the public highlights the value that planning is bringing not just to our region, but the state and beyond. Through regional planning and coordination, it will soon be possible to get from Maine to Florida on a bicycle. Just think about that and then get excited!
When you think about other challenges and opportunities that face your region, whether natural resource protection, housing, economic development or transportation, remember that good results come from good planning. New Hampshire’s Regional Planning Commissions look forward to seeking opportunities to bring new resources to our regions to further local community goals.
To learn more about these services, be sure to contact your Regional Planning Commission. Visit the NH Association of RPCs online at www.nharpc.org where you can find your region and take a virtual tour of the RPCs.