Rindge Growth Exercise

Rindge Growth Exercise
May 22, 2006

 Trends

As much as many people might like our communities in New Hampshire to stay exactly the way they are, forecasts indicate that the population is likely to increase, and the courts have indicated that each community has to accept a fair share of that growth, that we can’t build walls around our communities to keep these new arrivals out. And growth can be a good thing. New members of our communities may bring new ideas. They may bring new energy and volunteers for our local government and boards. But, improperly managed, growth can change the nature and feel of a community.

Forecast for Rindge

The NH Office of Energy and Planning estimates that the Town of Rindge (exclusive of students at Franklin Pierce College) is at approximately 4,460 people. They anticipate that by 2020 that number will have increased by a little over 20% to 5450.

Similarly, it is likely that Rindge will receive additional retail growth over the next fifteen years. The recent Home Depot proposal by itself would have added an additional 140,000 square feet. To give you a sense of scale, the existing Wal Mart is 75,000 square feet. Market Basket it 48,000, and the remainder of that shopping center is an additional 60,000 square feet. For planning purposes it is assumed that Rindge will receive an additional 400,000 square feet of retail space over the next fifteen years.

Finally, comments during the visioning session indicated an interest in attracting small professional office complexes to Rindge, similar to those recently developed in New Ipswich. Those are each on the order of 5,000 square feet each. For planning purposes, let us assume that Rindge is able to attract five of those over the next fifteen years, for a total of 25,000 square feet.

Exercise

Since we fully expect that growth will be coming to Rindge, the purpose of this exercise is to get people to begin to think about where they would like to see that growth occur, and to make comments on the nature of it that they would like to see coming.

Each team should look at their base maps, which show both where existing development is, where protected lands are, and which lands would be difficult to develop because of natural resource constraints.

As a starting point, groups can indicate other lands which they feel should not be developed, which should be protected in some way. Then, on the remaining lands, they should place colored dots as follows: