Exeter NH affordable housing crisis no surprise. Will we act now?
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We should not be astonished that Exeter is having an inexpensive housing crisis. We should really have listened to Peter Francese again in 2008.
Peter, a extensively acknowledged demographics professional, retired to Exeter for the quality of existence, but quickly determined a phenomenon that accounted for a mass exodus of younger folks from the point out and a flocking of retirees. He attempted to warn us.
“I could see the foreseeable future extremely obviously when I appeared at the demographics of New Hampshire in 2008,” Peter said this week when I spoke to him by mobile phone from his new residence in Pennsylvania. “There’s a rationale why New Hampshire is the next oldest condition in the nation. Demographically, New Hampshire is getting old so rapid, it won’t be extensive ahead of we’ll be very first.”
In a nutshell, New Hampshire went comprehensive pace forward on setting up age 55-plus housing and retirement housing but didn’t do the exact for economical housing.
“The end result of 12 yrs of executing this is that we have no workforce,” Peter stated.
And no location for regular folks to live.
Exeter Existence:Reduction of longtime Exeter corporations an additional casualty of pandemic
I know a pair who own a prosperous company in city, the kind of business that makes our downtown a vacation spot. They opened their store listed here since they cherished the Exeter group. Just before the pandemic began, they bought their household more than an hour away, experienced money in hand, and hoped to buy a residence in this article.
In spite of placing delivers in on numerous houses in the time since, such as one where by they pledged to deliver handcrafted chocolate weekly for a yr to the sellers, they are still renting. Their hire is additional than their mortgage was on the home they marketed. But the alternate rents are not any much less expensive. Pull up listings on the New England Serious Estate Network look for engine and there are now a few qualities for lease in Exeter, a two-bedroom for $2,100, a one-bed room for $2,300 and a two-bedroom for $3,999.
NH on its way to being oldest condition in the nation
Along with Lorraine Stuart Merrill, Peter co-authored the ebook “Communities & Implications: The Unbalancing of New Hampshire’s Human Ecology and what we can do about it,” which laid out how New Hampshire went from the 28th oldest point out in the nation to the second. It was a simply call to action to rebalance the human ecology of New Hampshire prior to it is much too late. Exeter filmmaker Jay Childs manufactured a companion documentary, and a sequel to equally was released in 2021.
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But regretably, 15 yrs following the initial ebook was introduced, its predictions have come whole circle in Exeter. Search at the local workforce for retail or restaurant positions. It is superior faculty children who even now live at dwelling or retirees searching for part-time cash flow.
The Inn by the Bandstand, a charming bed and breakfast with a restaurant in the heart of town, had a dazzling pink “help wanted” signal out entrance previous 7 days. This following they’d been putting up on their social media for months hunting for help. Up the road at Cornicello, a restaurant so common you will need reservations, chef/operator Tim O’Brien has been on the hunt for a regular dishwasher for months. He’s now presenting $18/hour and totally free food stuff.
As of 2020, there had been 17,000 55-plus housing models throughout the state. When that variety is put together with the range of seasonal models in the point out, that are only made use of in the summertime, there is pretty very little left for the rest of us.
“The source of regular dwelling models for regular men and women regardless of whether they have children or not is so compact that the price has long gone proper through the roof,” Peter states. “And it all comes back again to the myth. The myth that every single single boy or girl will raise your home taxes.”
He posits that it is not the youngsters but the state’s approach of having to pay for instruction at the nearby stage that is the challenge. There are 160 faculty districts, which includes directors, in the point out. “It’s a quite superior-price tag framework, just about all of which is paid out for by way of house taxes by the nearby communities since the state of New Hampshire with no income tax or sales tax contributes essentially almost nothing,” Peter claims.
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I really do not have to have to go down the rabbit gap of New Hampshire’s instruction funding discussion that spans a long time. We never have that type of time. Again in 2008, Peter predicted the scarcity of personnel that we are now observing locally.
We didn’t pay attention.
What happens subsequent?
“The potential is this. There are a dozen or far more huge businesses in New Hampshire and a person of the greatest is in the Exeter place,” he explained. “They are now busing staff members from Lowell and Lawrence (Massachusetts) every working day. They are paying for buses, but at some stage, the accountants are going to say to the board of administrators, ‘This is nonsense.’”
Other states will offer tax incentives for huge corporations along with a reduced charge of residing for staff members. Enterprises leave. Youthful workers leave. Colleges downsize or close. “There’s your response to cost-effective housing,” Peter claims. “And when the values of the houses go down, the assets tax rates go up to make it up. One phrase describes that predicament, catastrophic and disaster is what’s coming.”
Following that uplifting prediction, you might truly feel we’re doomed. But Peter says there are a few items we can do.
Initial, the condition could go a law that suggests housing can not discriminate by age.
2nd, Peter implies cities require to loosen prerequisites to permit cluster-design and style developments on scaled-down plenty, which would be significantly less pricey and could share h2o and sewer.
And third, cities and college districts ought to glimpse at how they can work together, and in some conditions share sources, to decrease expenses, which would, in switch, decreased home taxes and make it additional affordable to dwell in the location.
We didn’t hear to Peter in 2008. It is 2022 and his projections have appear legitimate. I hope we pay attention this time.
Lara Bricker is a former employees writer for the Exeter News-Letter, the author of the Piper Greene Exeter mysteries and a longtime Exeter resident. She can be reached at [email protected]
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