NEW!  NHPA Planner's Book Club
 
ARE YOU LOOKING FOR.......?
 
     • A forum to discuss your reads?
     • Motivation to read?
     • You don't read the books, but want to learn vicariously?
     • A boost for AICP Study?
     • Refresher for your AICP Study?
     • An excuse to have coffee and socialize with planners?
 
THEN PLANNER'S BOOKCLUB IS FOR YOU!
 
The first meeting is scheduled for Sunday, January 26th at 3:00pm @ the True Brew Café adjacent to Gibson's Bookstore, 45 South Main Street in Concord  

Phone Number of Gibson's is (603) 224-0562.
 
The first book is "The Death and Life of Great America's Cities" and I have coordinated with the owner of Gibson's book store to order books.  He will provide a 10% discount to our book club and books can purchased at the store or ordered online - Click here! 
 
The Event is Free to NHPA members but limited to the first 12 that RSVP to: Elizabeth Wood

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Click here for the Bike/Pedestrian grant opportunity! 

The New Hampshire Planners Association serves the state’s planning community by providing information on current events, articles and opinions, current legislative initiatives, and news about planners around the state, as well as links to many resources. Please feel free to submit articles and opinions, tell us what's happening with you or your community, and tell us of a planning event that you have not found on this site. Let's work together!!

Spring has finally sprung and 2013 has already been a great year. Thank you to everyone who joined us for the presentation of Annual Awards and the Spring Professional Development workshop at LaBelle Winery in Amherst, NH on April 29th. We were fortunate to partner with the NH Bar Association Municipal & Government Law Section for a lively look at the current status of variance law and the hardship standards.

The Legislative session is well underway and has kept the Legislative Subcommittee on their toes, tracking over fifty bills, with seven bills receiving a priority status. This committee has become an essential voice for planning at the State House due to the outstanding work of NHPA member volunteers. The Legislative Tracker spreadsheet is updated regularly on our website to help you keep up with the changes.  

The Executive Committee and the COG (Conference Organizing Group) are hard at work pulling together what promises to be an exciting and productive 2013 Northern New England Planning Conference in Meredith, “Planning for Everyone”.  The conference will provide a focus on the relationship between the work of planners and those who have often not had a voice in the processes we administer and the products we create. If you are interested in helping with the Conference or sponsoring please contact Ben Frost or any committee member for more information. 

Check out the rest of the newsletter for more great news on planning around the State. Don’t forget to mark your calendars for the NNECAPA Conference on September 19th and 20th at Mills Falls in Meredith, NH! 

     Sarah Marchant, NHPA President

The Town of Merrimack, NH has hired Donna Pohli as their new Assistant Planner in the Community Development Department.  Donna comes to us from a recently completed fellowship with the City of Dover, NH’s Community Development Department and completing her Master of Public Administration degree from the University of New Hampshire.  Donna replaces Jeff Morrissette, who left Merrimack in May for the Town Planner position in Westford, MA.

Goodbye and good luck to Vanessa Goold of Central New Hampshire Regional Planning Commission. She and her husband have moved to Maryland to be closer to their families and pursue new endeavors.

Jodie L. Levandowski joined the Milford Community Development Office as the Town Planner this past June. After graduating from Plymouth State University in 2004 with a degree in environmental planning and GIS, Ms. Levandowski worked for the Manchester Planning and Economic Development Office and the Londonderry Community Development Office, and spent the last two years working as a land use consultant with a private firm on Long Island. 

Mary Brundage is NRPC’s Regional Planner and provides support on a variety of land use projects including the NH Broadband Planning and Granite State Future. Prior to joining NRPC, she has worked at the Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission (SNHPC) as an Associate Planner. Her projects at SNHPC included scenic byways, open space plans, hazard mitigation, and source water protection. Mary has received her M.S. in Natural Resource Management at Antioch University New England and her B.S. in Geography from Montana State University.

One of NHPA's own, Steve Whitman of Jeffrey H. Taylor and Associates, has recently co-authored an article titled Taking the Permaculture Path to Community Resilience. The article appeared in Practicing Planner in June, and attempts to get planners to view our communities as the ecosystems they are and consider how the components of these places can be better integrated. Permaculture is a holistic, integrated system analysis and design tool that very few planners are using. Whitman and Ferguson suggest in the article that planners should know about permaculture and begin using it as a framework to guide their communities. The full article can be found at: http://www.planning.org/practicingplanner/default.htm