Hearing Considers Fees to Preserve Open Space

By David Darman on Friday, April 22, 2005.

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A bill before the House Municipal & County Government Committee would allow communities to impose fees on newly built real estate to pay to preserve open space.

Londonderry officials are pushing for the measure.

They told lawmakers yesterday that they want to keep open space in their heavily populated town.

But they also said they can't do it without a state law to help them purchase tracts of land to keep them free of development.

David Caron is Town Manager in Londonderry.
we currently have authorization to assess impact fees for items such as road construction active recreation facilities and schools, just 3 of a number. and what we're looking to do is receive legislative authority to assess impact fees for open space.

The bill would allow communities like Londonderry to draft ordinances to charge the fees for open space.

The fee would join others that can add thousands of dollars to the cost of a new house or condominium.

Several developers told the Municipal Committee open space fees would add unnecessarily to the already high costs of new housing.

Kendall Buck is with the Home Builder & Remodelers Association of New Hampshire.

He says if costs get too high, the pace of new housing construction in the future could slow.
we've built about 87 hundred housing units in 2004. the projections for the next 30 years is we'll need to average that number to meet the needs for this state if we'll continue to grow and prosper. its going to be very, very difficult if not impossible to maintain that kind of housing start level if we continue to ratchet up the prices and therefore move more of the citizens out of the ability of being able to buy.

Developers were also concerned that towns may be asking for more power than they really need.

For instance, they said towns are free to make deals with landowners for conservation easements or other similar arrangements.

Jeff Keeler owns Keeler Family Reality in Pembroke.

He said communities have more direct means of restricting development.
the towns already have the ability to create open space through innovative zoning, cluster subdivision, village plans, other types of things, where they can exchange density in one area for open space in another. those abilities are already in the hands of the community.

But town officials disagreed with developers about their ability to keep space open.

Dave Carron of Londonderry said zoning authority only allows towns to influence the shape of new real estate.

He says outright prohibition is against the law, and its called "taking without compensation".
you can't tell a developer, you own 50 acres of land in the north side of town, for example. we've identified this 50 acre parcel as critical to maintain a town's open space, so you can't build on that 50 acre lot. that's 'taking without compensation'.

The measure to allow communities to impose fees for open space has already passed the New Hampshire Senate.

Its scheduled to stay in the House Municipal and County Government Committee until May.