Above, Concord Mayor Byron Champlin speaks at the celebration of 48 new units of housing on Sheep Davis Road Thursday. Also pictured are U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, and U.S. Sen Maggie Hassan, D-N.H. PAULA TRACY photo
By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – New Hampshire’s considerable workforce housing crisis eased a little on Thursday when federal and local leaders came to celebrate the completion of a new, 48-unit multifamily housing development for the Concord area, just off Interstate 393.
U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, and Maggie Hassan, D-NH, toured the new building before tenants arrived, opening closet doors and checking out the new appliances in several of the one-, two- and three-unit apartments at Davis Ridge which will be taking in new residents on Nov. 1 at 303 Sheep Davis Road.
Concord Mayor Byron Champlin thanked the non-profit CATCH Neighborhood Housing for pulling the many partners together to see the safe and environmentally friendly new homes come to fruition in just one year and under budget.
Executive Councilor Cinde Warmington, D-Concord, who was also there to congratulate the team noted that some $1.8 million of the $100 million INVEST NH program, using federal American Rescue Act Funding to build an estimated 2,000 units statewide was used.
Warmington fought to make sure that units in the INVESTNH program were affordable. The funding was approved by the five-member council. But that money is now largely gone or allocated and she said she was not sure just how many of the estimated 2,000 units were built under the program.
Warmington, who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination and is not seeking elective office this time around, said housing continues to be a top issue among voters.
And both Shaheen and Hassan agreed.
Shaheen said she recently spoke with Susan M. Collins, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston who told her after a tour of New England that she was surprised that New Hampshire has such a tight housing market because she did not expect that and that it is “much worse than the rest of the New England states. The consequences are very real,” in terms of offering housing to grow the region’s economy and to give people who work here a home, she said.
According to the NH Housing 2023 Statewide Needs Assessment, the current housing shortage is 23,000 units and by 2040 the state could need as many as almost 90,000 units.
She said the state has a vacancy rate of 1.6 percent for a rental unit when a healthy rate is more like 5 percent. Only about 13 percent of the state’s rentals are currently affordable to the state’s workforce.
“Being able to live in a place that you can feel comfortable in. That you can bring your family to, that you can afford is an absolute American value. Every citizen in New Hampshire and this country should be able to do that. And right now, in New Hampshire we have a crisis,” she said.
Hassan said she was impressed with the facility’s common room and playground and the progress that this project represents.
“Our housing crisis in New Hampshire is truly, I think, our state’s biggest challenge at the moment. It is certainly the thing I hear about everywhere I go. Whether it is businesses looking for entry level workers…its businesses telling me they can’t recruit senior executives,” she said.
“We need to approach this from the ‘all of the above’ attitude,” Hassan said.
She said too many people are struggling to find their own place to live in the Granite State and they need help.
Tom Furtado, president and CEO of Catch Neighborhood Housing, a non-profit which over the past 30 years has created 379 units for low and moderate income (average income $24,000) in Merrimack County said the $13.3 million project needed a collaborative public-private effort. And he outlined how it worked.
The project was awarded $8.8 million in low-income housing tax credits in the fall of 2022 from NH Housing. And with the help of RBC, Furtado said they were able to syndicate and convert those tax credits into $8.2 million in equity for the development.
“Without those tax credits and without that equity, a project like Davis Ridge could never have happened,” he said.
The project was also able to take advantage of nearly $1.8 million in the $100 million InvestNH program, which was funded by the federal government for post COVID-19 relief under ARPA.
Eastern Bank also stepped up for cash and not only provided equity by purchasing the tax credits but provided the construction and permanent financing for the project.
It took about 12 months to build the Energy Star rated housing project which is ahead of schedule and ahead of budget, he said.
Davis Ridge has 28 units of one bedroom housing, 17 units of two bedrooms and three three-bedroom units. Rental rates at initial lease-up range from $1,005 to $2,400 including utilities.
Now the lease up process begins and the CATCH subsidiary nonprofit Alliance Asset Management who are processing dozens and dozens of applications.
A “staggering” statistic Furtado said is that they process 10 to 11 applications for every one that gets accepted.
Furtado thanked the City of Concord, the Nobis Group for their engineering, general contractor Milestone Construction and their subcontractors, funding partners including Eastern Bank and RBC Community Investments, the team New Hampshire Housing, the state Department of Business and Economic Affairs, the law firm of Sheehan Phinney and NeighborWorks America among others.
“Affordable housing development is not for the faint of heart and it truly takes an entire team of dedicated individuals and organizations to create a project like Davis Ridge,” Furtado said.
At Catch Neighborhood Housing, he said “we build connections. We build safe places for our neighbors to call home and together we build communities.”
A special congratulations was offered to Alex Panagiotakos, director of real estate and COO at Catch Neighborhood Housing who “drove this development from start to finish and Davis Ridge is the product of her hard work and dedication,” Furtado said.
To seek housing here, visit www.AllianceNH.com.
