2023 Northern New England Planning Conference

Wentworth by the Sea, New Castle, New Hampshire

November 6 - 8, 2023

Conference Recap

The NNE Planning Conference was held at the majestic Wentworth by the Sea, New Castle, New Hampshire in early November. We had a record-breaking attendance at 325 which created a very cozy atmosphere throughout the three days.

Monday afternoon began with a series of workshops scattered around several communities in the New Hampshire seacoast region, including Dover, Durham, and Newington. We hosted our annual cocktails from each state with a variety of fabulous flavors and an opportunity to sample one of each. These are always very popular and makes for a fun competition. The Conference formally kicked off on Tuesday morning with keynote speaker, Jenny Raitt, discussing advancing zoning reforms and the concept of “planning grit”. There were over 20 workshops with topics to include housing, transportation, equity, sustainability, resilience and many others. Two additional mobile sessions were also offered, exploring downtown Portsmouth and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, including the Town of Kittery, Maine.

Attendees spent one night visiting downtown Portsmouth eating at many of the great restaurants, pubs and cultural art components. We held our annual awards program and our congratulations goes out to all nominees and recipients. Closing out the conference, on Wednesday afternoon was a plenary session honoring history and celebrating 400 years in communities throughout the host state of New Hampshire, the municipalities of: Dover, Portsmouth, and Rye.

The NNECAPA Executive Committee want to thank all the conference sponsors and sustaining sponsors who enable us to provide a cost-effective registration fee. The hall was full of vendors, with another record-breaking year with sponsor participation. Thank you too all!

We received many comments from attendees on how to improve for next year and pages and pages of suggested session topics. The call for sessions will go out in January so begin thinking on topics for next year. Another interesting stat was that 98.3% stated they attended due to the sessions being relevant to their work and 97.3% stated networking with sponsors and other attendees was the influence. We will continue to strive to make both of those reasons for you all to return.

The conference committee has already begun the process for next year’s conference to be held October 28 – October 30, 2024, at the Stoweflake Mountain Resort, Stowe, Vermont. There are many new faces on the committee and fresh ideas to make next year’s conference another success. If you have any thoughts or suggestions for upcoming conferences, membership or general issues, feel free to reach out to Nancy Kilbride, NNECAPA Administrator, eventsyourwaynh22@gmail.com.

Below are the slides from the presentations:

Planning Grit: Advancing Reforms in Planning

Coastal Flooding in Hampton

Implementing Resilience

Rethinking Economic Development Incentives for Growth & Opportunities

Access Navigators

Rethinking the Comprehensive Master Planning Process and Product

Talking COVID, Learning for Climate Migration

Working Together Toward Housing Choice

Transportation & Community Development

Leveraging Higher Education Institutions for Urban Economic Development and Revitalization

Housing Fact or Fiction