Like much of southern New Hampshire, the town of Milford is worried it might be growing too fast.
And the town's planning board is considering its options, including limiting development.
It's a short term solution, but town officials want some breathing room to figure out how to solve what they see as a long term problem.
NHPR Correspondent Avishay Artsy has more.
For a couple of years, Milford’s planning board has been sifting through statistics and charts.
Officials want to find a way to help smooth the growth of their town.
About a thousand new residents have moved in over the past four years, bringing the town’s population to about 14,500.
“We are blessed with being an hour out of Boston, an hour from the coast and an hour from the mountains. You can do anything you want in Milford. It’s a great place to live, and people have found us [laughs].”
That's Noreen O’Connell, the selectmen’s representative to the planning board.
She says being at the intersections of 101 and 101A, right on the border with
Massachusetts, has made Milford's location ideal for commuters.
But it's not just about location says Bill Parker, Milford's Director of Planning and Community Development.
He says there are good economic reasons to move here.
"We have a pretty well-balanced economic base, with manufacturers and businesses, commercial interests, but more and more people are moving to Milford and commuting because perhaps the housing is a little more affordable, if indeed a 300,000, 350,000 dollar house is affordable.”
There seems to be enough growth in town that some residents and officials are worried Milford will lose something it could never get back.
But not everyone in town is convinced there's anything to worry about.
Kevin Lynch is the town's Building Inspector.
“Basically, I don’t see a problem myself because we’re averaging in the last ten years the same amount of building permits per year. I’ve been here for 15 years – you take the average of 15 years, we’re right on cue.”
And that's what Milford developer Steven Demarais has found.
“The rate of construction of new homes in the town of Milford has been steady for 20 years or more, as the population of the town increased by 5,000 people. New home construction is still roughly 80 homes per year, which means the rate of growth has declined for the last 20 years.”
Town officials admit that growth has not dramatically increased.
But it is higher than that of their neighbors.
After not building any new apartments in the 1990s, Milford has had a boom in apartment construction in the last few years. Now it’s second only to Nashua in the region for the ratio of multifamily units to homes overall… something the planning board is concerned about.
And as Milford officials look around they see neighboring towns doing something they haven't done yet…managing growth.
Four out of the seven bordering towns regulate the number of new housing permits given out each year.
That's slowing growth in those towns.
And it may be causing developers as well as potential homebuyers to look at Milford.
Steve Williams is the executive director of the Nashua Regional Planning Commission.
“The entire southern New Hampshire and northeastern Massachusetts area is really one integrated housing market, and people will move around in the entire area to find the best combination of housing cost and quality of life and commute length and all the other things.”
So the Milford Planning Board wants to institute its own growth management regulations. The planning board is proposing a one-year moratorium on large subdivisions.
Board members say they just want more time to plan out a long-term strategy.
If the town decides to go with 41 other New Hampshire towns that have growth management regulations, not all of its problems will be solved.
It will slow development, but it will also affect the cost of housing.
Milford’s planning director, Bill Parker, supports the proposal.
But he agrees that availability of affordable housing will suffer.
“As land becomes more scarce, harder to develop, development costs go up. That’s one reason we need to look at alternative housing, still provide for those who can’t afford the big homes on single-family lots. It’s a big issue across the state.”
Builder Steven Demarais almost assures the town that housing costs will rise.
He says developers will simply push the increased building costs onto homeowners.
The planning board's proposed moratorium takes effect on Wednesday.
But town residents will be able to vote it up or down during their town meeting in March.
If they pass it, the planning board then has until March of 2006 to decide whether a permanent growth management plan is indeed the answer to its growing pains.
For NHPR News, this is Avishay Artsy.
