New Hampshire's population is growing. But in recent years, it's been increasing at a slower rate, in part because towns have put tighter restrictions on development.
And while these growth restrictions have been successful in slowing down the growth rate, they've also had some unintended consequences. New Hampshire Public Radio's Rebecca Kaufman has more.
For Peter Francese, the statement "New Hampshire is the fastest growing state in New England" is misleading.
"We may be the fastest growing state in New England but that's only because the other states aren't growing at all to speak of, and Massachusetts over the last 12 months actually shrank in population because of high out migration, so the idea that New Hampshire is rapidly growing is quite frankly nonsense"
Francese is a demographer from Exeter and does demographic forecasts for the organization, the New England Economic Partnership.
He says in several cities and towns, growth probably feels pretty rapid, but statewide, New Hampshire's population is increasing at a slower rate than the U.S. average.
"During the 1990s the growth rate was approximately one percent a year, which is not that high of a growth rate, that means for every 100 people here on day one, a year later there's 101, and now it's not even that fast."
In 2000, nearly 12,000 people moved to New Hampshire - three years later, that number plummeted by 75 percent.
Still, those numbers aren't much consolation to Dan Sundquist.
Sundquist is with the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, an organization that promotes conserving land and protecting the state's natural resources.
He believes the current lull is temporary. Over the long haul, he expects the population gain is going to remain steady.
"You really need to look at these cycles over a longer period of time, and the data shows that no matter what, we grow at about 14,000 people per year."
Sundquist has been out in communities encouraging residents to think about smart growth, master plans, and land conservation for the long term.
But perhaps a more knee jerk reaction by towns to control development has been to implement growth management ordinances or temporary growth moratoriums.
Demographer Peter Francese says these ordinances are having their intended effect; they've helped slow down growth.
But the measures are having a secondary effect, and that concerns him.
"By clamping down on growth it really severely restricts the supply of affordable housing it just makes the housing there much more expensive because there's still a demand for housing and if you don't build anything, then the price of what's there already tends to rise."
"That's sort of a side effect no one wants to think too much about."
That's Bill Parker, director of planning and community development in the town of Milford.
The town overwhelmingly passed an interim growth ordinance at their March town meeting.
Parker says people in Milford are well aware that a growth ordinance will drive up the price of housing.
But political pressure to reign in growth, especially the kind that might increase property taxes, is very strong.
"There's a perception in town is that we have way more than our share of multi-family compared to surrounding towns, one thought is that Milford should slow down its rate of growth, especially for multifamily housing and let other towns pick up the slack, whether realistically other towns will do that, I kind of doubt it."
A word of caution: statewide trends don't necessarily describe what's happening in a particular community. And the effects of growth vary widely.
But clearly, rapid growth has spurred many communities to act. Now they face the challenge of dealing with the consequences of those actions.
For NHPR news, I'm RK
