Out-of-Staters Need Not Apply

The vast construction site on the edge of the Merrimack River has been under several inches of snow.
So far, workers have demolished much of what used to be the old JacPac meat-packing factory that closed several years ago.
It’s fairly quiet here now, but by spring workers should be picking up the pace.
Anagnost: The project is estimated to employ somewhere between 600 and 1,000 construction workers, and those will all be New Hampshire residency requirement workers.
Dick Anagnost is the site's developer.
….we're focusing on our local economy and want to keep all of our dollars pumping back into our local economy here, so suppliers, laborers, subcontractors all have to have a New Hampshire residency requirement as part of their contract to bid on this job.
Anagnost is building the Elliott at River's Edge, an outpatient clinic expected to open at the end of 2010.
The site will also include medical offices as well as commercial and residential buildings.
The more than $100 million development is touted as the biggest construction project in Manchester since the Mall of NH.
It's also the only major project in the city at the moment and that’s important to Anagnost.
Anagnost: I want to keep Manchester's local economy booming during a downtime.
One might think that contractors in the state would support Anagnost’s effort to give priority to local builders.
But Gary Abbot is against the idea.
He’s with the Associated General Contractors of New Hampshire.
Abbott worries the residency requirements could backfire.
First, he says, limiting the number of bidders could inflate prices.
And he points out that similar requirements in some Massachusetts towns have cut out New Hampshire workers.
So we know firsthand some of the NH contractors have had trouble working in those communities,
Robert Petrocelli is with the Associated General Contractors of Massachusetts.
He says he understands the attraction of the policy, but he says it works against the free market.
The city of Fitchburg had a residency requirement because they were doing some school projects, and so the town of Leominster put up, ……from what I understand, their own residency requirements. So what happened was when Fitchburg projects ended, the workers tried to go over to the next town, and they couldn't.
The New Hampshire building trades union likes the residency requirement and is hoping to benefit from the Manchester project.
They’ve got a campaign called NH Workers for NH Work and argue Granite Staters can often make more money on Boston-area projects.
And that drains the state of skilled workers
Mark Mackenzie is president of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO.
He says the residency requirement gives people the chance to work in their own state.
And, he says, Massachusetts has used them to build a base of talent.
The whole idea of community farms and supporting local businesses and doing that kind of stuff, well, in many ways what we're saying is, we have a whole bunch of people who think that makes sense, but when it comes to the construction project, when it really comes to buying NH services or buying the work -- the talent -- of NH workers, for some reason that whole thing seems to fall apart.

Developer Anagnost says the residency requirements are not hard and fast.
He can waive them depending on the situation.
In fact, he's already made an allowance for Suffolk Construction.
The Boston-based company has partnered with Anagnost's general contractor, Eckman Construction of Bedford, NH.
But Anagnost says all Suffolk people on the job are NH residents.
Anagnost is unapologetic about his residency requirement.
He plans to keep close track of it.
Anagnost: I'm the one doing the 100 million project, taking the risk in a down economy.
For NHPR News in Manchester, I'm EG.