Author Archives: Rich Brown

Can ‘Planned Developments’ Help Lyme’s Housing Problem?

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In an earlier note, I detailed some of the characteristics that make senior housing attractive. This housing could include a combination of:

  • Clustered homes and apartments with neighbors nearby for ease of access and social interaction
  • A mix of unit sizes, to serve the differing needs of Lyme residents
  • A variety of services: shared space for living and dining, on-site management and aides, garages, elevators, etc.
  • Attractive (but not necessarily low-income) pricing
  • Economic feasibility for a commercial developer
The Zoning Ordinance today only allows development like this in two places (“districts”): the Lyme Common District and the Commercial District near Pond View Apartments/85 Dartmouth College Highway. Could either of those districts support this kind of housing?
  1. Lyme Common District: Not really. The Planning Board’s recent build-out analysis shows that the Lyme Common District can only support a certain amount of “infill” development – adding one or a few units to the existing homes. There isn’t enough land, water, or septic capacity for significant new housing.
  2. Commercial District: Perhaps. But it’s more than two miles from the Lyme Post Office. Do we want to encourage development so far from the center of town?

What Could Lyme Do?

The Lyme Zoning Ordinance already defines a Planned Development that would allow the kind of housing envisioned above because it permits:
  • Multiple buildings on a parcel
  • Up to six business or dwelling units per building
  • As much footprint, lot coverage and gross floor areas as allowed in the district
A simple adjustment to the ordinance – permitting a Planned Development other places in Lyme, perhaps anywhere on Route 10 – would remove a significant regulatory hurdle to better housing.


Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email by clicking one of the icons below. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public bodies, such as the Lyme Planning Board, to which I may belong. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

‘President of Seiko’ Strategy for Receiving Good Service

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A long time ago, my watch wouldn’t keep time. It’s a Seiko Kinetic with a dark green face. I like it a lot: it’s a mechanical (analog) watch, but it’s electronic, keeps extremely accurate time, and I never have to worry about batteries. When it stopped working, I sent it to be cleaned at a local jeweler, and then they sent to the factory a couple times, but the problem persisted.

My good friend and business partner Stuart suggested that I Fedex the watch to the President of Seiko, with a nice note asking what can be done. About three weeks later, my watch came back, working perfectly, no charge. And it has continued to function perfectly to this day.

Why did this work? Like Seiko, every company president has a team whose job is to take care of problems. They are charged with “making things right”, so the problem doesn’t even need to reach the desk of the president.

If you’re receiving poor customer service, find out the name of the president of the division or company – the higher up, the better. (Google is your friend).

Prepare a short, polite note telling why you are disappointed by their service. Give specific details about the problem, and what you have done to try to resolve it. Name names, if you wrote any down during your calls.

Summarize with something like, “So I decided to ask you for help.” and make a clear request for what would make you happy. (Make sure it’s something they have the power to fulfill.)

Send a real letter – physical stuff still has power at companies. Use overnight or two-day delivery to give bigger impact, and also to confirm they received it. Include “Personal” in the address – it might get more attention.

At the worst, it’ll cost you a few bucks for the Fedex. If they blow you off, you can savage them publicly. But if they do the right thing – and lots of times they will – they give you a great story for social media.

Coffee Shop Bloat Test

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We all have heard the perennial complaint, “the network is sooo slow.” A primary reason is the inelegantly-named bufferbloat – caused by a bad router that queues up too much data (“the router gets bloated because it buffers too many packets”).

The good news is that a fix has been known for quite a while now, and it’s often a matter of properly configuring the router.

Dave Täht likes to go into coffee shops and help the owners provide better network service for the customers. (Sometimes, he gets a free meal!) He developed a small script for measuring the bufferbloat to use for before and after tests.

I’ve tweaked the script to make it easier to run and display the results. (You still need to install Flent and fping to make it work on your laptop.) But now you can go to your favorite coffee shop to measure the state of the network. See the script at https://github.com/richb-hanover/coffee-shop-bloat-test

US Robotics Acoustic Coupler

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Ahhh… the memories… Back in the day (around 1978), I had one of these beauties. All you had to do was place the telephone handset into those cups (really! [1]), dial up your favorite server, and Presto! You were on-line at 300 bits per second. And for only $139 – it was heaven!

While rummaging through my files, I came upon its (dot-matrix) printed manual, so I scanned it for posterity. Enjoy!

Photo credit: http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/USR/USR_Modem.htm

[1]: Wait… What? You had to insert the handset into those cups? Why? AT&T insisted on this  to “prevent damage to the telephone system” from third-party (unlicensed, untested, unreliable) equipment. Only after the Carterphone decision in 1968 would AT&T allow you to make any sort of electrical connection to the phone network. Before that, you could not connect your own telephone (you had to rent one from AT&T), or a fax machine, or a modem, etc.

USR-310 Acoustic Coupler Manual

Senior Housing at the Planning Board — Two Years Later

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Two years ago, the Lyme Planning Board hosted a Senior Housing Forum where community members spoke about their thoughts and hopes for senior housing. The quote below comes from the Planning Board minutes of 28 September 2017:

Item 1: Senior Housing Forum

… The Board discussed with the attendees the various forms that senior housing could take. The overall sense was that different people wanted different types of housing. The various forms below were discussed:

  • Smaller single resident homes allowed on a single lot.
  • Cooperative housing in larger buildings.
  • A mixture of small houses and apartment or town house style buildings.
  • Large assisted living facilities.

Almost exactly two year later, there has been no concrete action toward permitting any of these kinds of housing. The current draft of a Senior Housing amendment still does not provide a realistic way that these (or any other kind of moderate price/workforce) housing could be built.

Please attend the next Planning Board meeting on Thursday, 12 September 2019 at 7pm to give your views.


Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email by clicking one of the icons below. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public bodies, such as the Lyme Planning Board, to which I may belong. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

10 Goals for Senior Housing

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At a recent meeting (22 Aug 2019) the Lyme Planning Board discussed a Senior Housing amendment to the Ordinance. I expressed concerns about the draft proposal that had been circulated, and asked questions about the goals. Rather than spend time on that draft, other board members encouraged me to draw up my own goals for further discussion. You can view the entire Planning Board meeting on Youtube (below).

I created the following goals for discussion at the Planning Board’s next meeting on Thursday, 12 September 2019, at 7:00pm in the Lyme Town Offices.

My question: Should Lyme’s ordinance permit some kind of housing like this? Would the option for housing like this be valuable to Lyme? What concerns might you have? You can contact me at richb.lyme@gmail.com

10 Goals for Senior Housing

(Can’t read the PDF above? Download it at https://RandomNeuronsFiring.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/10-Goals-for-Senior-Housing.pdf)

View on Youtube

Here is the entire Planning Board meeting. [Click here] to jump to the discussion of Senior Housing.

[Note: There is an error in the date of the video above – it was made on 22 Aug 2019.]


Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email by clicking one of the icons below. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public bodies, such as the Lyme Planning Board, to which I may belong. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

Planning News – Great Resource from NH

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Noah Hodgetts, Assistant Planner for NH Division of Planning publishes a weekly summary of Planning News. It summarizes and links to a handful of stories from around the state each week.  Here is this week’s list:

  • NH Supreme Court denies Northern Pass appeal
  • Plans for Laconia State School site discussed
  • Amherst plans to create safer roadways for walkers, bikers
  • Somersworth, Rochester tax breaks aim to spur growth
  • Plans still early, but vision clear for Keene downtown arts corridor
  • NH DES Soliciting Feedback about Updated Model Groundwater Protection Ordinance through July 26, 2019
  • NHMA to Host Zoning Board of Adjustment and Planning Board Basics Webinars on August 14th and September 4th
  • NH DES Accepting Applications for Local Source Water Protection Grants until November 1, 2019

Read each week’s Planning Newssummary at: https://www.nh.gov/osi/planning/planning-news.htm


Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email by clicking one of the icons below. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public bodies, such as the Lyme Planning Board, to which I may belong. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

Vital Communities-Zoning for Great Neighborhoods Survey

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Mike Kiess from Vital Communities has sent out a request for responses to a short survey set up by the VT Department of Housing and Community Development. The deadline’s short, but they’re looking for responses from both VT and NH

The VT Department of Housing and Community Development is starting a project to create templates for bylaws and zoning regulations that will allow people to do more things with their properties. Use by towns would be voluntary.

Please share your opinions in this short survey. URL is https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/23JC5XL

NH opinions matter, too! Housing is a shared regional challenge, and planners from NH will be involved.

Your response by Friday, July 5, 2019 is appreciated.


Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email by clicking one of the icons below. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public bodies, such as the Lyme Planning Board, to which I may belong. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

What’s this thing called “Current Use”?

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The Current Use law in New Hampshire provides a tax break for certain property owners who choose not to change the “current use” of their property to a higher level of development. However it shifts the tax burden to property owners who do not have property in “current use”. Here are some details.

  • In 1973, the NH Legislature created the Current Use law to “encourage the preservation of open space” by giving property owners a break on their taxes. (NH RSA 79-A:1)
  • The NH Current Use Board sets the level of “encouragement”. Today, current use landowners receive as much as a 98% discount on their property taxes.
  • This means that the other residents in town have to pay higher property tax to make up for the taxes not collected from properties in “current use”. (It’s a zero-sum game. If the legislature mandates a discount on taxes for some properties, the taxes have to go up for other residents.)
  • Many property owners have already permanently conserved land. Consequently they do not need additional encouragement (through a tax break) to preserve open space since development is already precluded.
  • In my town of Lyme, NH, it appears that 94% of all land in Lyme is either conserved or in current use. Discounts for current-use properties total over $1.5 million and add about $5 to our $27.19 per thousand tax rate.
  • Forty-five years later, we now understand the true effect of the Current Use law: in rural towns with lots of open space, it drives up the tax rate for all residents. The law has relatively little effect in more densely-developed, urban towns, since there are few current use properties.

The NH Current Use Board has opened a public comment period (for this year) about the proposed Current Use Assessment Ranges. Comments may be submitted in writing to Tracey Russo, Paralegal Department, NH Department of Revenue Administration by mail at PO Box 457, Concord, NH 03302; by fax at (603) 230-5932; or by e-mail at Tracey.Russo@dra.nh.gov. The deadline for the submission of written comments is Thursday, June 20, 2019.

I just sent an email to Tracey.Russo@dra.nh.gov along the lines below:

To the NH Current Use Board:

I am a resident of Lyme NH. I wish to submit a public comment to the Board regarding their regulations regarding Current Use.

Sincerely,

/s/ Your name

The NH Legislature could rewrite the Current Use law to make it more equitable. This is a long term project. However, I request the Current Use Board to consider the following changes to their regulations:

1) Add the requirement that land may not qualify for current use treatment if it is already has a permanent restriction from development.

2) Decrease the base discount on Current Use property, to create meaningful incentives for creating a stewardship plan or making the land available for the public to access.

3) Set different discount rates for current use land and permanently-conserved land. Permanently conserved land can be assessed at its market rate, while current use land can receive a temporary discount for the time that the land is in its current use.

I would encourage you to send your own message, using any (or all) of the points above. I would also like to know what you wrote: you can cc me at richb.lyme@gmail.com. Thanks!


Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email by clicking one of the icons below. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public bodies, such as the Lyme Planning Board, to which I may belong. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

Strong Towns “Strength Test”

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I was browsing around the Strong Towns web site, and came upon their criteria for measuring the strength and resilience of a town. They point out that full technical analysis is time consuming and often not usable by non-technical people.

So they designed a ten question survey at https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/11/15/strong-towns-strength-test My favorite question is #3:

3. Imagine your favorite street in town didn’t exist. Could it be built today if the construction had to follow your local rules?

I would be intrigued to hear your thought/answers. Send them to me at richb.lyme@gmail.com. Thanks.


Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email by clicking one of the icons below. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public bodies, such as the Lyme Planning Board, to which I may belong. I would be very interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.