Photo by NHPIRG

Rampant Development, Struggling Downtowns
The Granite State is growing faster than any other state in New England. An explosion of uncontrolled development is swallowing up open space, forest, and farmland, destroying our landscape and our heritage. With 180,000 people expected to move to New Hampshire by 2020, those problems are poised to grow worse.

At the same time, our downtowns, the focus of New Hampshire life for centuries, are struggling. Channeling New Hampshire’s explosive growth toward downtowns can restore the rich centers of community life, draw development away from open spaces and forest at the edge of town, strengthen our economy, and help curb the environmental and public health fallout from poorly-planned growth.

Harming The Economy And The Environment
Assault on the environment: Poorly-planned development reaching farther and farther into open space cuts critical habitat into smaller and smaller pieces. New roads follow, leading to more cars driving more miles, a key reason behind New Hampshire’s persistent air pollution problem. And, as we pave over acre after acre, polluted run-off washes directly from the pavement into our rivers and streams.

Diminishing quality of life: Downtown was once the heart of our community. It was the economic engine and the focus of public life, essential to quality of life. These days, uncontrolled development has drained the life out of our downtowns.

Photo by Ralph Morang

Rampant Development
The path of least resistance: Developers often prefer big box stores and strip malls because they are the least expensive to build. But who benefits from that kind of development? For every dollar spent at a big box store, only a small fraction remains in the local economy.

False promise: In many instances, poorly-planned development spells economic trouble for local towns and taxpayers. Often development comes in with the false promise of economic prosperity. Towns spend more to run water and sewage lines, to maintain roads, to hire more police and firefighters, to expand schools, and to absorb the other consequences of growth.

Photo by Ralph Morang

A Vision For New Hampshire
Vibrant communities: We can return our downtowns to a rich mix of residences and businesses—apartments, shops, restaurants—while more of the outlying areas, including the land along state highways, can remain open, sparsely settled countryside.

A healthier environment: Channeling New Hampshire’s uncontrolled development means more than stronger economies and a better quality of life. It promises environmental benefits like less air and water pollution and more open space, farmland, and forest.

Strengthening Downtowns
NHPIRG, along with the Conservation Law Foundation and a coalition of town planners, is advocating for legislation that will help local towns counter uncontrolled development.

Specifically, that bill would strengthen local control over planning decisions, put more tools in the hands of local decision-makers, and allow individual towns to raise money locally to help revitalize town centers. The bill would also require the state to use existing building space, when that is practical, before building new offices on open space. And it would steer more resources to towns wrestling with the nuts and bolts of land use and planning.

The legislation aims to help New Hampshire towns reap a triple benefit: Strengthen local economies, lead to a cleaner, healthier environment, and reinvigorate the downtowns that have been the focus of New Hampshire life for more than two centuries.

Support NHPIRG
With your support, NHPIRG will continue advocating to counter uncontrolled development by:

• Protecting more open spaces, farmland, and wetlands from development.

• Opposing construction projects that encourage sprawl, and advocate to expand transportation choices by increasing funding for rail, bus, bicycle, and pedestrian options.

• Working to ensure that growth pays its own way.