Welcome to the Lakes Region Planning Commission's open house to showcase the Granite State Future. It took place in Meridith NH, at the LRPC offices and began at 5:30pm. The Granite State Future is the name given to a Federal Planning grant called the Sustainable Communities Initiative. There are 9 Regional Planning Commissions in New Hampshire and Nashua has signed an agreement with HUD to acquire the grant money and coordinate with the 8 other RPC's to develop regional master plans. The involvement of the Federal government and the contractual requirements is fueling a strong opposition to this program. The contract that the Nashua planning commission signed, the HUD 1044, has concerning language, such as the sub document of the HUD 1044; the rating factor narrative. It reads: "One of the steps in the visioning and planning process to be used by each planning region will be to identify existing and potential barriers to ensuring Sustainable Communities and to articulate the strategies the regions will use to mitigate and overcome each barrier. Anticipated barriers include New Hampshire's strong tradition of individual property rights and the resultant resistance to planning and zoning" The opposition finds this language is being omitted from the discussions with the public in order to subversively attack their private property. Towns and cities are asked to participate in the Federal program that will promote international agreements that promote "Sustainable Development' and integrate the approach to land resource management. The term 'sustainable development' was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The Bruntland Commission was formed at the United Nations and is one of the base reports that led up to Agenda 21; the Agenda for the 21st century. Agenda 21 is a framework that is a product of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. It is an action agenda for the UN, other multilateral organizations, and individual governments around the world that can be executed at local, national, and global levels. The goal of the agenda is to control all aspects where humans have impact on the environment. The Federal Government has agreed to incorporate "Sustainable Development" into all Federal departments. The executive order that formed president Clinton's; "Presidents Council on Sustainable development" in 1993 laid the framework to achieve SD in the United States.
The Federal Highway Administration; Federal Transportation Agency; Environmental Protection Agency and Housing and Urban development are being tasked to incorporate the principles in SD into land use and transportation planning. http://www.nhteapartycoalition.org/tea/2013/03/09/how-do-you-crash-an-open-house-just-ask-the-nhtpc/