Hanover
The town budget is expected to add about 10 cents to the municipal portion of the property tax rate, for an increase of almost 1.6 percent. That translates to an extra $40 on a $400,000 home, although the actual rate will vary by fire district.
Tuesday night’s floor meeting, held in the Hanover High School gymnasium and attended by about 150 residents, featured an hourlong debate over increases in the proposed $23.2 million operating budget.
Hanover Finance Committee member John Ruth criticized the roughly $320,000 increase in spending proposed for next year, and questioned why the Selectboard gave raises to town employees while many residents’ salaries had remained flat.
“As a town, I feel we’re living beyond our means,” Ruth said.
He moved to amend the budget request to make it level-funded, at a little less than $22.9 million.
Much of the ensuing debate centered on the Selectboard’s decision this year to move away from the Consumer Price Index — a measurement of changes in costs of household goods and services that some analysts equate with inflation — as a guideline for budget increases.
Selectboard Chairman Peter Christie, in introducing the budget, relayed town officials’ position: the town does not purchase many of the goods and services tracked in the index, which therefore is not a good predictor of municipal cost increases.
Ruth and other residents argued that the index, which remained level this year, helped determine many residents’ salaries and that town leaders should take into account how much residents will be able to pay.
“I don’t buy at all the point about divorcing ourselves from the CPI,” resident Jim Reynolds said, speaking in favor of Ruth’s amendment. “Everyone in this room practically has their income tied to the CPI, (so) you have to take that into account or else you have an unsustainable situation.”
Christie countered that town employees had studied recent budget increases in 20 comparable communities in New Hampshire. Hanover had been 11th on that list, Christie said, adding that he found it “reassuring” that Hanover was in the “middle of the pack.”
As for the consumer price index, he said, “we try to look at many factors. We have not totally abandoned the CPI, but it is now one of six or seven factors in a process that is really more an art and not a science.”
The amendment eventually failed, 88-71. The budget then passed by voice vote as originally proposed.
In balloted voting, an incumbent selectman, Vice Chairman Athos Rassias, won his fourth term in office against challenger Brian Chen, a Dartmouth College undergraduate who withdrew from the race last week but whose name remained on the ballot.
Three amendments requested by Dartmouth passed, allowing the college to go forward with projects that include a planned expansion of its western campus.
One amendment will ease the height and setback restrictions in the campus “institutional” district along West Wheelock Street near Thayer Drive, allowing the construction of a new building for the Thayer School of Engineering under which the school plans to add a parking facility.
There is a cemetery near that site, and another of Tuesday’s successful amendments allows construction closer to burial grounds, after review by town officials.
Finally, another amendment permitting a wider range of structures associated with outdoor recreation passed, aiding the development of a new Nordic skiing facility at Oak Hill in northeastern Hanover.
A bevy of miscellaneous zoning amendments intended as housekeeping to the town’s code handily passed; municipal officials had said the changes were meant to eliminate contradictions and keep town ordinances in line with existing state statute.
The only two articles that failed had reached the ballot by petition and lacked support from the Planning Board.
One of the requests, which also appeared on last year’s warrant, would have changed the way the town measures buildings’ height. Neighbors who objected to the size of a new house had proposed the amendment as a way of curbing the stature of houses with peaked roofs.
The other defeated article was petitioned by a man who was denied a variance to add a second story to his home. The measure, which went down 583-296, would have increased the allowable size of additions that do not conform with surrounding zoning.
The petitioner, Warren Coughlin, stood outside the polls on Tuesday next to a large hand-lettered sign that read “HELP!” He spoke out to residents as they passed, asking them to vote for his amendment.
Coughlin, a military veteran, had hoped to rent out a planned apartment above his new garage, but was denied permission to build the living space because his duplex is situated in a single-family area.
“It’s so limiting,” he said of the rule, which currently allows expansions of 20 percent to structures that don’t conform with surrounding zoning. “I built a three-bay garage, and my 20 percent was gone. It’s been expensive and time consuming. It’s been a disaster.”
In other business, residents during the floor meeting approved two land-use agreements that could expand town services.
One provided for the opening of a 16-space public parking lot on Allen Street, and the other accepted a land gift from Dartmouth toward the construction of a second ice arena next to Campion Rink.
The land gift will only go through, according to town leaders, if the project receives all necessary approval from Lebanon city officials.
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.
Clarification
Passage of a zoning amendment at Hanover Town Meeting to ease height and setback restrictions in the campus institutional district will enable Dartmouth College to construct a new building for the Thayer School of Engineering, under which the college plans to build a parking facility. The college says that it has scaled back plans to build a free-standing parking garage closer to West Wheelock Street because of community concerns. An earlier version of this story included outdated information about the college’s plans.