“Outskirts to Downtown” from NHHFA

New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority presents two sessions about land use, taxes, and good planning practices.

Today’s session (29 Oct 2020, 11am) will be looking in detail at three Upper Valley towns: Claremont, Hanover, and Lebanon. Register at https://www.nhhfa.org/event/from-the-outskirts-to-downtown-taxes-land-use-value-in-upper-valley-communities/ The session will be recorded, so you can go back to that page to view it in a day or two.

The previous session was held on 15 October 2020. The recording and presentation slides are now available at: https://www.nhhfa.org/taxes-land-use-value-analysis-by-joe-minicozzi-urban3/

I hope that you can find the time review one or both of these sessions – their presentations are always valuable.


Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public body, such as the Lyme Planning Board, Budget Committee, or Trustees of the Trust Funds where I volunteer. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

Senior Housing Forum – Bring your stories…

As I think about tomorrow’s meeting, I realize that it would be helpful for the Planning Board to hear stories from Lyme residents.

What might you want from “Senior Housing”? I wrote a post a while back that you can use as a starting point. See What are your plans? and bring them to the Planning Board’s Zoom call. (See the Zoom link below.)

If you cannot attend the Zoom conference (there are a lot of other events, see below), please consider sending a note with your thoughts to the Planning and Zoning administrator, zoning@lymenh.gov Thanks!

Rich Brown
RandomNeuronsFiring.com
795-2525

Other Events on Thursday: It is regrettable that so much is happening tomorrow evening.

Senior Housing Public Forum – Oct 22

The Planning Board is working on a revised proposal for Senior Housing. They plan a public forum (by Zoom) on Thursday, 22 October at 7:00pm You can read the full announcement at: https://www.lymenh.gov/planning-board/files/senior-housing-amendment-draft-2020 The draft text is appended below.

Although this draft is better than the version proposed last year, it still will not provide good Senior Housing for the Town. It will be helpful for the Board to hear input from the public. The discussion might include these questions:
  1. Why must these units be limited to only one or two people 62 years or older? Why not permit “younger seniors”, say 55 year olds, a federally-recognized standard for “older persons”? Why is it important to prohibit a younger caretaker from living with a senior parent?
  2. Why must Senior Housing be limited to the Lyme Common District? It’s the most expensive land in town (per acre), which drives up unit prices. Furthermore, the language seems to have a built-in contradiction, relaxing dimensional controls to permit as much as 15,000 square feet of development on a parcel while remaining “harmonious and consistent with the present character of the neighborhood.”
  3. What is the justification for the “poison pill” provision? (This is the Board’s own term.) Although the current draft does not contain the language, the proposal would nullify this amendment if NH requires that towns extend the same density bonus for all housing as it gives to senior housing. How does that benefit Lyme?
I have asked these questions in working sessions earlier this year, but frankly, the minutes do not contain very good explanations. It would be quite helpful to have members of the public bring them up in the public forum. I hope to “see” you this coming Thursday. Thanks.
Rich Brown
795-2525


Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public body, such as the Lyme Planning Board, Budget Committee, or Trustees of the Trust Funds where I volunteer. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

Astonishing Lidar View of NH

The NH Stone Wall Mapper project uses Lidar data to display small variations in ground elevation. A UNH project built this map to identify stone walls in the state.

This site can be “misused” (in a good way) to show lots of other topographic features. Here’s a “Lidar view” of the grounds of Loch Lyme Lodge, near Post Pond. The features are shaded as if the sun were shining from the northeast. (Update: 31 Dec: Thanks to the good folks at the NH Geological Survey, the link now goes directly to the desired view!)

But wait… there’s more! You can turn on and off various “layers” to see other kinds of information. To do this:

  1. At the top-left, click the Layers Icon to display various layers
  2. Check on or off the Hillshade box to “show or hide the trees”…
  3. Click the More… icon to enable other features, such as the “Swipe Layers” that lets you compare two layers…

So much fun – play around!. Turn on/off layers, scroll to other parts of NH. If you find something interesting, send me a note and I’ll post it. Enjoy!