“Danger Zone” - New Legislation Requiring Notification for Zoning Use Changes

Imagine this…. You have a summer home at the lake. Abutting that home is a large tract of land. Someone buys that land and announces that they are going to build a casino on the property. Aside from that being all of the news in town and around the state, you as an abutter would receive a letter noting of a planning board (or zoning board) meeting for public discussion with the theory being that the proposed use could impact your summer home.

Notice is the key. The main reason we let abutters know about planning board meetings is that they are the most likely to be impacted by a change of use. Furthermore, in our example above sufficient notice would not be met unless mail had gone out to the abutters. Consider for a moment another cause and effect that could impact your property. What if there was a change in the zoning that would impact your property’s value. What if the zone where your lake home resided was being changed from residential to commercial, your property and others around it could now be redeveloped for retail. Would you not want to speak out about that change? In favor or against?

Currently towns are only mandated to place notice at town hall and in the local paper for zoning use changes. One could argue that a zoning change could have a larger impact than a development next door. However we still have a low threshold for notice. There is a Senate Bill 228 currently in front of state legislature that would require mail notice for a public hearing for a use change within a zone.  This is going to be a very important one to follow, not just for those who own property out of town but for your own house or office you may own. Not all of us hear about public notices, and this may be a good step forward for understanding impacts on your property’s value. 

Bill 228 Link: (http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2014/SB0228.html)

Written by Chris Norwood, NAI Norwood Group, cnorwood@nainorwoodgroup.com