Affordable Housing in Hanover, NH

A family of political refugees from Afghanistan - a mother and her three daughters - came to Hanover, where members of two churches had promised to find them a better life.

Bob Strauss, a Hanover retiree and member of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, tried to help the young family start over.

"We spent a lot of time on housing, trying to find something they could afford on their meager pension as political refugees," Strauss said.

Finally, the family was able to rent an apartment at Romano Circle, a subsidized housing development in nearby West Lebanon.

"What we did in effect was we dumped three young women who were in need of special instruction on the Lebanon school system, and that didn't sit well with me," Strauss said. "That's when I started the movement to have an affordable housing committee here in Hanover."

Seven years later, developers are about to break ground on a $24 million, 120-unit apartment complex. New Hampshire's biggest ever "affordable housing" residential development will be built on 22 acres off Route 120 in Hanover, just north of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.

But "affordable housing" in this context isn't the nebulous term people use when complaining about the disproportionate share of quality housing available for couples and young families. The Gile Community, as the Hanover development is called, is designed to remain perpetually affordable to people that inhabit income strata far below Hanover's average.

Without a piece of previously town-owned land, however, the development would not have been possible.

In 2000, Strauss set up three housing seminars in Hanover in an effort to interest other residents in housing issues and spur them to take action. About 50 people signed on to the cause and began researching various options. They discovered that Dr. Frank Gile had donated a large tract of land north of the hospital to the town, and it remained undeveloped.

In 2001, the group proposed to the Hanover selectmen a plan to build apartments on the land using a complex financing structure that would keep rental rates down and restrict equity gains for owners. The board of selectmen approved the plan Sept. 10, 2001, the day before the terrorist attacks, Strauss said, and they also set up the Hanover Affordable Housing Commission, of which Strauss is chairman. At town meeting 2003, Hanover voters overwhelmingly supported giving up the land for housing.

Meanwhile, the financial arrangements needed to defy the real estate market and create housing units in Hanover with price tags of $150,000 proved dizzying, said Bruce Pacht, executive director of Twin Pines Housing Trust, a nonprofit housing developer in the Upper Valley.

"It couldn't have happened if there hadn't been an indigenous movement," he said.

Twin Pines partnered with Hartland Group, a low-income housing developer based in Burlington, Vt., to create Gile Community Housing LLC. Together with the Upper Valley Housing Coalition, a nonprofit advocate for low-income housing, the group secured pre-development financing from the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, Fannie Mae, Partners for the Common Good, the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, the town of Hanover, Twin Pines Housing Trust and the Home Depot Foundation.

The result was a design featuring 12 apartment buildings, each containing between seven and 15 one-floor apartments with one or two bedrooms. Of the 120 units, 61 will be rentals and 59 will be for sale. About 15 percent of both types will rent or sell at market price. The rest will be reserved for people who earn 50 or 60 percent of the median household income, which in Hanover is $62,900.

Pacht estimated that tenants will pay about $600 per month in rent, and owners will pay between $150,000 and $180,000. Strauss and the Hanover Affordable Housing Commission are charged with marketing the development to consumers.

Len Cadwallader is the executive director of Vital Communities, a nonprofit organization based in White River Junction, Vt., that promotes balanced community growth and serves as the fiscal sponsor of the Upper Valley Housing Coalition.

Cadwallader said the Gile development is a step toward forming new ideas about the appropriate make-up of a community.

"We're talking about changing people's attitudes toward the inclusion of homes for people who cash our checks at the bank, the people who care for our parents and grandparents at nursing homes, the people who fix our leaky faucets and coach our little league teams."

Construction of the Gile Community is slated to begin in late May, with first occupancy planned for November. Wood from trees logged on the land will be used as siding for the buildings, Pacht said, and the apartments will all have energy efficient appliances. Plans include a shared natural playground and community building.

Cadwallader said the Gile Community helps reinforce a new definition of "affordable housing" that's less about the housing and more about the people who live there.

"The term affordable housing conjures up in people's minds the big failures that HUD (U.S. Housing and Urban Development) built 30 or 40 years ago, and as a society, we learned that bad mistakes were made. But the whole face of housing that is perpetually affordable is completely different than what it was," he said. "I talk about homes that are affordable for working families rather than affordable housing. Housing is anonymous. Homes are where people live."