Regional planning commission gets grant

Friday, January 27, 2012

MERRIMACK – The Nashua Regional Planning Commission has announced that New Hampshire’s Regional Planning Commissions have been awarded a $3.37 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Regional Planning Grant Program to work with their local communities to develop comprehensive regional plans in each of the state’s nine regional planning areas.

The goal of HUD’s Sustainable Communities grants is to help communities and regions improve their economic competitiveness by connecting housing with good jobs, quality schools and transportation.

The Regional Planning Grant program encourages grantees to integrate housing, land-use, economic and workforce development, transportation, and infrastructure development, through regional planning efforts, in a manner that empowers regions to consider how these factors work together to create employment and economic opportunities. The program will place a priority on partnerships, including the collaboration of arts and culture, philanthropy, and innovative ideas into the regional planning process.

When the Regional Planning Commissions were created almost 50 years ago, regions were significantly less impacted by statewide policies, and they were much less dependent on coordinated systems and external resources to create vibrant economies. Economic competitiveness was inspired more by self-sufficiency and was insulated from state, national and international economic instability. As jobs grew further from housing, services became aggregated in one anchor community and travel became more frequent and over longer distances. The impact of one community’s decision-making on others grew in complexity and lessened independence. While the growing influence that municipalities have on each other may be playing out in local level, the planning processes and frameworks necessary to translate those interests into effective polices have not advanced along with the changing dynamics of local and regional needs.

The three-year project will provide a platform to inform state partners of the priorities of local communities and educate local decision-makers of the limitations of outside resources. The concept of creating a template by which all RPCs can both identify local issues and priorities while coordinating technical expertise and public outreach will be a unique statewide effort.

For more information, please contact the Nashua Regional Planning Commission at 424-2240.