PROPERTY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS ARE UNDER ATTACK

 PROPERTY AND INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS IN NH ARE UNDER ATTACK

“The stranger reaps our harvest, and the alien owns our soil” Irish poet, Jane Wilde

The Regional Planners and Granite State Future/Sustainable Communities crowd have their sights on New Hampshire.   So, beware of the “new” Form Based Code (FBC) / high density zoning.   

“New” isn’t always better, and that is certainly true with zoning.  With FBC zoning, the rights of the community prevail over those of the individual.  Most countries like Mexico have massive corruption because the people do not have individual or property rights.   Our Founders made sure individual and property rights were the cornerstone of our Constitution and as a result we have been blessed with liberty.

Conventional zoning supports constitutionally protected property rights from being taken without just compensation, whether the taking is by eminent domain or because of overly burdensome land use regulations.

These same Constitutional protections are not applicable with FBC zoning because the outcomes are predetermined in a community development plan devised by unelected planners, technicians, building code enforcement officers and other unelected bureaucrats who are paid to administer it.  FBC also costs twice to quadruple that of conventional zoning thereby further burdening the taxpayers for no good reason.

Community planners prefer the highly rigid constrictive FBC which they get paid to administer and can do so with less input from you or your elected representatives on the planning and zoning boards.

A recent Land Use Audit in Lancaster, NH (prepared by a former Regional Planner) recommended the Town Meeting there delegate the planning board’s site review to an unelected administrator.

There is no room for individual or private property rights with the Sustainable Communities Initiative.

Sustainable Communities Initiative, “Smart Growth”, includes the doctrine of Regional Equity that takes money from suburbs through the imposition of onerous laws and forces them to be more diverse.  It seeks to formalize, through integration of HUD, DOT, DOE and EPA, as federal policy the very strategies that equity advocates have been seeking to advance for years.  And, the rights of the individual property owner are kicked aside in favor of predetermined outcomes devised by the Federal Government.

A recent Land Use Audit in Lancaster recommended the town allow multi-family units as a permitted use in the Agricultural Districts in order to construct Workforce Housing units. (The community development planners didn’t ask the farmers if they agreed to this use of their property).   At the same time, they recommended that farming areas that are otherwise currently zoned commercial be re-zoned, thereby depriving farmers of the full value of their property should they decide to sell.

Some say FBC zoning is a "sham" and an unconstitutional “arbitrary and capricious abuse" of the police power of the state.

If you attend a Charrette or “Listening Sessions” you should be aware that it does not matter what you have to say.   There’s no accountability built in and so, just like with FBC zoning, the conclusions are pre-determined and devised by government bureaucrats.   The meetings try to give the appearance of being democratic, but it’s false.   Few if any members of the public attend the sessions that are mostly made up of government bureaucrats and other stakeholders.

The Sustainable Communities Initiative/Regional Planning Commission “Vision” of New Hampshire includes under “strategies to overcome anticipated barriers”, New Hampshire’s strong tradition of individual and property rights and the resultant resistance to planning and zoning!  

When they knock on your door, refuse to surrender your Constitutional rights to unelected government bureaucrats, administrators and community development planners.   Keep New Hampshire’s strong tradition of individual and property rights.   

Martha Spalding