New Hampshire shoreline. ( Photo Courtesy of CAW)
Planning
Principal Regional Planner Kyle Pimental attended the Coastal Adaptation Workgroup (CAW) meeting on Thursday, Mar. 28. These meetings allow members of CAW to discuss different ongoing projects and plan for upcoming initiatives. At the March meeting, Vidya Balasubramanyam, NOAA-funded Coastal Management Fellow, gave a presentation on the New Hampshire Smart Shoreline project .
 
As explained on CAW's website, this effort began in 2017 to help communities identify sites suitable for living shorelines and develop a strategy to increase understanding of how these approaches can preserve important environmental services in the face of current and future coastal risks and hazards to tidal shorelines. A living shoreline is a shoreline stabilization technique that utilizes a variety of structural and organic materials such as wetland plants, submerged aquatic vegetation, oyster reefs, coir fiber logs, sand fill, and stone (NOAA).
 
Vidya's presentation included the unveiling of new tools that will allow municipalities to assess shoreline conditions through the Coastal Viewer. These new data layers on the viewer will be integrated over the next several months, and training and outreach to communities will follow.
 
Contact Kyle Pimental at 603-994-3500 for more information., 

Pieces of Interest


Transportation
On Thursday, Mar. 28, Rachel Dewey, data analyst, met with Farmington's Revitalization Steering Committee. This group consists of town staff, elected officials, and citizen representatives focusing on downtown revitalization, including the old fire house site. Committee members have been working together for a little over a year to gather input from those who live, work, and play in Farmington, to better understand how the town needs to evolve and grow in the future.
 
In order to work through this process, committee members are being assisted by SRPC staffers, UNH Cooperative Extension, and students from UNH Professor Mary Freidman's capstone planning class. Recently, SRPC was asked to assist with a downtown parking study which will provide useful data to the committee. At Thursday's meeting Rachel provided an overview of what a downtown parking study entails and offered committee members insight into the type of data they would need to collect.
 
Stefanie Casella, data collection and analysis assistant, will be meeting with the UNH students next week to further coordinate assistance to the Town, and to review the type of data collection that will be taking place during the study. Stefanie and Rachel are also finalizing the methodology for this process. Data collection will take place in April before the end of classes at UNH.
 
For more information on this effort contact Rachel Dewey at 603-994-3500.

Pieces of Interest

Economic Development
Shayna Sylvia, Communications and Outreach Planner, attended the Explore Moose Mountains meeting on Thursday, Mar. 28. Explore Moose Mountains is a grassroots, non-profit initiative to promote the WONDERFUL in the Moose Mountains Region of New Hampshire. It’s parent entity,  Wentworth Economic Development Corporation , is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) regional economic development corporation founded in 1993 for the sole purpose of promoting economic growth in the eastern Lakes Region.

The meeting focused primarily on the initiative's web presence, as the group is finalizing a request for proposals for a new website. Board members also discussed several upcoming events including the upcoming Moose Made Expo on May 6 and Meet the Press events to take place in June. The Moose Made Expo will be a two part event where vendors will be able to setup, network, and market their products to connect with sellers and wholesale opportunities, followed by a birthday celebration of the Explore Moose Mountains initiative. The Meet the Press event will allow an opportunity for members of the press to explore the region by participating in self - guided tours of The Moose, NH.

For more information on the upcoming events, or to be included on the contact list for the outgoing RFP email exploremoosemountains@gmail.com .
Pieces of Interest

Strafford Regional Planning Commission | 603-994-3500 | srpc@strafford.org | www.strafford.org
March 29, 2019