HB 209 - AS INTRODUCED
1999 SESSION
HOUSE BILL 209
AN ACT relative to authorizing the consideration of traditional village patterns in local zoning ordinances.
SPONSORS: Rep. Melcher, Hills 11; Rep. Brundige, Hills 18; Rep. M. Fuller Clark, Rock 36; Sen. Russman, Dist 19; Sen. Johnson, Dist 3
COMMITTEE: Municipal and County Government
This bill provides for the consideration in local zoning ordinances of traditional village patterns of concentrated building activity on a portion of land leaving large portions of land undeveloped.
This bill is a request of the study committee on land use, farmland, rural and community character, and sprawl established in 1998, 197:2.
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Explanation: Matter added to current law appears in bold italics.
Matter removed from current law appears [in brackets and struckthrough.]
Matter which is either (a) all new or (b) repealed and reenacted appears in regular type.
99-0189
10/09
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
In the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine
AN ACT relative to authorizing the consideration of traditional village patterns in local zoning ordinances.
Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:
1 Purpose. Under some local zoning ordinances, driven by revenue needs, development is sometimes unintentionally encouraged which has often resulted in sprawl growth that includes neither open space, nor integral community life. Farmland has been replaced with strip development, and main streets with square miles of asphalt malls that can never be reconverted to productivity. Therefore, local zoning authorities should be empowered to make zoning ordinances which fulfill the desire for growth without losing the sense of place and New Hampshire traditional village pattern character that they seek for their localities.
2 New Paragraph; Purposes of Planning and Zoning; Traditional Village Pattern. Amend RSA 672:1 by inserting after paragraph III-f the following new paragraph:
III-g.(a) New Hampshire was settled in traditional village patterns. These communities concentrated building sites and other development on a portion of the land and left adjoining areas either in large expanses of productive agriculture and forests, or in undeveloped natural habitats. This pattern of development produced many public benefits, ranging from lower development and maintenance costs, to open space protection, to the retention of aquifer recharge areas, and other benefits. For these reasons, communities shall encourage, and not unduly restrict, development projects that concentrate building activity on a portion of the land, leaving large portions of the parcel undeveloped.
(b) At their sole discretion, communities may require concentrated patterns of development in areas where the protection of open space is deemed of critical importance for the protection of aquifers, wetlands, sensitive archaeological areas, historical sites, agricultural lands, or other issues identified and articulated in an adopted master plan.
3 Effective Date. This act shall take effect 60 days after its passage.