Begala: Portsmouth Planning Board has become a rubber stamp, that's why I resigned

It is with profound regret that I have resigned from the Portsmouth Planning Board, after five years of volunteer service over 2 terms.

I love Portsmouth. I grew up here and am a proud graduate of Portsmouth High and UNH. After a career in international public health, I returned to my childhood home, determined to make a positive difference inthe city I love. That’s why I agreed, twice, to serve as a volunteer on the Planning Board, originallyappointed by then-Mayor Jack Blalock.

I have given my service on the PB my best efforts and taken this role very seriously as a representative of the citizens of Portsmouth, reading every page of the massive meeting packets prepared by city staff and trying to visit each site proposed for development.

I have concluded that as presently constituted, and with the limited role relegated to it by the current CityCouncil, this board has become a totally ineffective, almost powerless body that, while approving site plans and special permits requested by developers, performs no meaningful role in planning, shaping or controlling rate or scale of development in Portsmouth.

This board has become a virtual rubber stamp for whatever development projects developers and their teams of well-paid lawyers, engineers, and architects have proposed. City planning staff invariably recommends that we approve these projects, and the board generally does whatever it is asked to do, often with few questions asked. Abutter and neighborhood concerns are seldom addressed.

Exceptions to our zoning code requested by developers are routinely granted, generally with no meaningfulbenefits for the residents of Portsmouth. Apparently, our zoning code doesn’t need to be complied with ifyou want to build a big project. This renders our zoning code largely ineffective. The exception has becomethe rule.

I have frequently been the only vote against approving many of these projects as presented, and one of the only members who asked hard questions of the developers and pointed out the lack of good justification, failure to pursue alternatives, lack of supporting studies and data (e.g., traffic impacts), lack of adequate parking, or the lack of trees and green space.

The results? Well, look around. In recent years, the board has approved many new luxury and “market rate” condos, some with penthouses, many new hotel rooms, and very little actual affordable workforce housing that City Council claims is their big priority. Many parts of Portsmouth are losing their historic character, and are starting to look like a suburb of Boston. Is this what the citizens of Portsmouth really want?

Despite all of this new development, and the additional tax revenues that they should be generating, our residential taxes keep going up, and City Hall staff keeps growing with 14 new employees in the last year alone, and a burgeoning city budget of $137 million. Something is wrong with this picture.

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As I have repeatedly pointed out, we have a hopelessly outdated master plan that fails to address what Portsmouth has become in the last 10 years of rapid growth and development, and where we are going and want to go. My ongoing efforts to update the master plan this year were rejected at our March 21 meeting by our chair and the four city staff who sit on this nine-member board, who don’t think we need to update our master plan anytime soon. Instead, they tout a “master plan” for downtown’s Market Square. What about all of our other neighborhoods that are facing intense development pressure and deserve updated design focus, like the West End, the North End, Elwyn Park and Pannaway Manor to name a few?

It is a Planning Board’s statutory responsibility under NH RSA 674: 1 to revise and update our master plan asneeded. Using a current master plan to guide city planning and PB decisions on individual projects isessential to “smart growth” and a core responsibility under New Hampshire law. Otherwise we are flying blind with no current data, goals or priorities to guide us, and continue to approve new projects on a one-off basis without consideration of cumulative impact or whether the city’s actual needs are being met.

Moreover, the City Council has taken away much of the PB’s fundamental role under New Hampshire law to plan, set policy, and review land use. They created the Land Use Committee and now the Housing Committee, relegating the Planning Board to approving whatever plans and policies they send it, like the 39 piecemeal zoning changes that were approved as a single item at our February meeting, over my objection and a couple of others.

Unfortunately, this board is led by a weak and largely ineffective chair who apparently takes his marching orders from City Hall. He conducts meetings with little transparency about decisions made behind the scenes in City Hall, which are reported to the board as foregone conclusions. He routinely cuts off discussion and debate after voicing his opinion. He doesn’t even set the agenda for our meetings — City Hall staff does. I’ve never heard of a municipal board, or any kind of a board, where the chair doesn’t set the agenda. I mean, who’s in charge here?

This is all crazy and backwards — the PB appears to be working for City Hall employees, City Council and thedevelopers, and not for the citizens of Portsmouth via processes that include them. The board is merely reactive to whatever staff, developers and the City Council bring to it.

So it is with much regret, sadness (and yes, frustration) that I conclude I can serve no useful function as part of this Planning Board, and that I can make more of a difference serving our community in other ways.

Jayne Begala, MSPH, MBA, is a Portsmouth resident and recently resigned member of the city's Planning Board.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Begala: Portsmouth Planning Board just a rubber stamp for developers