Volunteers who promote pro-housing policies concerned about being shouted down
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Mar. 26—CONCORD — People interested in volunteering for local boards, including those in favor of building more housing, don't sign up over fears of confrontation with the public, according to speakers at a housing conference.
"The civic discourse recently has been so divisive that there are plenty of people who may have that confidence but don't want to engage in a negative way with their neighbors," former Manchester Planning Board member Molly Lunn Owen said Tuesday.
Owen, who left the board because she struck out trying to buy a house in Manchester and moved to Concord, said some people have hesitated to volunteer after seeing "interpersonal attacks on our civil servants recently as our country becomes more divided."
The conference speakers spent less time criticizing local zoning laws than they did talking about how to get more people to push for more housing in their communities and help ease the state's housing crunch.
An audience member asked the panel how communities can spread the word that developers need more help to build more types of housing.
"I think they first need to believe that there's a problem," Peter Nichols, chair of the New London Housing Commission, said before a record event crowd of more than 300 at the Grappone Conference Center.
"Change is hard, and I think the American psyche is a little bit wounded from COVID," he said.
"We all had to become hermits. We lost social connection. We became uncomfortable with us in foreign wars.
"We've got some divisive politics, so we're all a little more protective than we used to be and we don't want change as much as we might have been willing to do before," Nichols said.
The third panelist said would-be volunteers may feel they don't belong volunteering.
"This sort of crisis of confidence is a really big barrier, not only for younger people," said Ian Rogers, co-facilitator of the Warner Housing Advisory Committee.
"Do I have a say in government because I've only lived at this place for X-number of years?" he said.
"It's one thing that I've found in talking with people is that anybody who cares about their community has a say," Rogers said. "It's not about the length of time. ... I think that's a myth and it's something people should not worry about at all."
Rob Dapice, executive director and CEO of New Hampshire Housing, which organized the conference, said buying a home remains difficult.
"High prices, high rates, low inventory," he said. "It's a tough environment for people to achieve home ownership."
Nationally, "that monthly payment on mortgage is now more unaffordable than it's been at any time in the last 30 years," said Chris Herbert, executive director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.
He said developers need to be able to make smaller housing units than single-family homes to bolster available housing for sale.
Darren Winham, economic development director in Exeter, said his town has adopted mixed-use neighborhood development districts that loosen some zoning restrictions. The town also requires at least 10% of any housing project be deemed workforce — renting for less than the market.
Winham advocated that developers talk to a community's larger employers to rally them to support proposed housing developments.
