Smart growth for the future of the Upper Valley requires not repeating the dumb mistakes of the past

Humor can be a spotlight, a magnifying glass, a “rubber-tipped sword.” Satire can play an important role in holding up a mirror to society.

Perhaps it has a role in the ongoing smart growth crisis in the Upper Valley where inherent hypocrisy and procedural paralysis are compounding the problem. We’re not going to fix today’s problems by listening to the same misguided thinking that put us in the housing crisis in the first place.

All the well-intentioned studies, committees, and funding efforts will continue to fall victim to the same outspoken opposition based on knee-jerk responses and unproven arguments, and a regulatory process that is more interested in incremental reform of a failing system than facilitating smart growth and community development.

Smart growth benefits the community by creating tangible benefits, and that return on investment can be measured in tax revenue and public amenities. Dumb growth is continuing to pour money into ideas that are familiar but fundamentally unsound.

“This is how we’ve always done it”-ism is what gives us box stores that gut our downtowns of vibrancy and extract community value for the benefit of shareholders from afar. It expedites big apartment buildings on the outskirts of town by out of state developers, while local homeowners can’t afford the regulatory rigmarole of improving their own properties while their taxes keep going up.

Navigating the regulatory apparatus shouldn’t require the flexibility of a gymnast and the endurance of a marathoner. Where is the customer-service to the tax-payer?

Analysis has its role and planning is essential, but it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on if we don’t address the drawn-out delays caused by procedural indifference and obstruction.

That’s what lets community-supported projects and initiatives die the death of 1,000 bureaucratic paper-cuts, and why citizens lose faith in their government regardless of their politics.

We need to change the conversation to focus on development that is good for the future. The good news is that there are plenty of experts out there we can copy. Ideas that have been proven to work elsewhere can work here, too.

But it starts with accepting the empirical evidence that restrictive and exclusionary zoning– born of racial and socio-economic biases of the 20th century– has failed to facilitate the communities we want– and often destroyed the communities we had.

It requires admitting that what we are doing isn’t working, and prioritizing collaboration and compromise to achieve executable projects that create housing and a tax-base to address growing municipal costs.

Doing so requires upsetting the status quo– and upsetting those who will never listen to reasoned arguments and evidence– to achieve that.

Until we eliminate subjective bias in favor of productive development that is net-positive to municipal finances we will continue to watch the deleterious impact on our community, and taxpayers will continue to pay more to subsidize bad decisions.

For over a decade, my family’s business Lyme Properties has tried to push a radical agenda of...what 75% of West Leb voters endorsed on the ballot. Yet, we have faced well-documented delays that drive-up costs and prevent progress.

Before we spend another dollar I’m pressing pause, calling bullshit, and using humor to apply the disinfecting power of daylight to dumbassery. To paraphrase the great Inigo Montoya: “you screwed over my father, prepare to be ridiculed.”

Whether your interest is smart growth or silly guffaws, I welcome those who wish to change the conversation to join me: www.bio.site/lyme

Chet Clem
Editor, The UV Observer
editor@uvobserver.com