MONADNOCK REGION FUTURE: A Plan for Southwest New Hampshire 2015 Prepared by Southwest Region Planning Commission MONADNOCK REGION FUTURE: A Plan for Southwest New Hampshire 2015 Prepared by the Southwest Region Planning Commission ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The work that provided the basis for this publication was supported by funding under an award with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The substance and findings of the work are dedicated to the public. The author and publisher are solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and interpretations contained in this publication. Such interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Government. The Southwest Region Planning Commission (SWRPC) would like to recognize the contributions of the following individuals to the development of this Plan. SWRPC BOARD OF DIRECTORS REGIONAL PLAN LEADERSHIP TEAM Thomas Mullins, Chair, Town of Peterborough Susan Ashworth, Home Healthcare, Hospice & Community Services Richard Berry, Vice Chair, City of Keene Richard Berry, SWRPC Board of Directors Lawrence Robinson, Vice Chair, Town of Marlborough Bob Baker, Keene State College Ben Daviss, Secretary, Town of Walpole Ben Daviss, SWRPC Board of Directors Elaine Levlocke, Treasurer, Town of Chesterfield Eileen Fernandes, Cheshire Medical Center Robin Blais, Town of Fitzwilliam John Harris, Franklin Pierce University Diane Chauncey, Town of Antrim Rhett Lamb, City of Keene James Coffey, Town of New Ipswich Elaine Levlocke, SWRPC Board of Directors Jill Collins, Town of Hinsdale Amanda Littleton, Cheshire County Conservation District Brian Foucher, Town of Harrisville Leandra MacDonald, SWRPC Board of Directors John Gomarlo, Town of Winchester Ed Merrell, SWRPC Board of Directors Alfred “Gus” Lerandeau, Town of Swanzey Tom Moses, Southwest NH Homebuilders Association Leandra MacDonald, Town of Peterborough Ryan Owens, Monadnock Conservancy Ed Merrell, Town of Jaffrey Jen Risley, Monadnock Food Coop Ludger “Butch” Morin, Town of Richmond Lawrence Robinson, SWRPC Board of Directors Keith Thibault, Southwestern Community Services TABLE OF CONTENTS FORWARD ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................3 What We Heard............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 7 VISION for the Future ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 14 Planning for the Future ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 Community Vitality ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 18 Economic Prosperity .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 32 Stewardship ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 49 PREPAREDNESS .....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................65 IMPLEMENTATION ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 79 APPENDIX .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 94 In modern cosmology, the universe dances. Nothing is fixed. Time Small Towns, bends. The short story of our settlement here in America tells a similar story: it’s a constant nervous migration. Many of the villages we praise have been on the move most of their lives. Open almost any guidebook or history of New England written in the last Large Questions 250 years and you will find the village praised as “one of the most delightful prospects which this world can afford,” as Yale president - Forward By Howard Mansfield Timothy Dwight wrote of his travels in the 1790s. A place possessing the fitness and poise of a clipper ship, “the highest and choicest beauty,” as the great landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted said in the late 19th ON A FEW ACRES IN MY TOWN, scientists are listening century. deep into space, sifting the static, trying to find the origin and the Such praise casts the village as a beauty-pageant winner, all dressed up end of the universe. The big white dish of the radio antenna has the with no place to go. The village is seen as a finished work. But these presence of a question mark. villages, like all American places, are fluid, mercurial. Some were settled first on a hill, then moved down by the water to run the mills. When the Just down the road from the observatory, Thornton Wilder wrote railroad came, they followed the rails, and when the automobile came to Our Town more than 75 years ago, when the universe as we knew it rule, they slopped across the landscape in malls, condos, and food joints. At its debut in 1935, Yankee magazine lamented a New England “about was a smaller place, but the questions we all ask were just as large. to be sold, to be ‘swallered inter’ a sea of chain stores, national releases, and nationwide hookups.” At the end of act I, Rebecca Gibbs tells her brother George how the minister addresses a letter: “It said: Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Some towns were a small Pleiades, a cluster of a half-dozen little villages, Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of which was soon eclipsed by a growing central village, which itself burned brightly until the auto age. America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the FORWARD Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God – that’s what Other villages are the story of the rise and fall of one commodity: it said on the envelope…And the postman brought it just the same.” clothespins, shoes, rocking chairs, buggy whips. American places are often but a rumor of community wrapped around the commerce of the The New England village, Grover’s Corners, was nested securely moment. Walk a few rods into the woods around here and you will find in a series of ever larger spheres. the cellar holes of farms and small villages that long ago failed. 1 To the many villages pursuing a revival, this history is like the old joke: Yes, they don’t know the stories and old ways, but they also don’t know The bad news is that these villages have changed, and the good news is that things can’t be done. Often, in partnership with the oldest residents, that they can change again. We are a restless people, suckers for those they take on the toughest challenges. magazine lists of the “Best Ten Towns to Live in This Week.” “The lesson is this,” advised one real estate wizard, “when migration turns to a They see that the grace the guidebooks have spoken of is still there. Time new region, do not clutch