The floor portion of Town Meeting will convene on May 9, at 7 p.m., in the Hanover High auditorium. The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the same location.
Hanover
This year’s operating budget, at $23.9 million, is rising by about $700,000, and, with other spending, is contributing to an anticipated 1.8 percent tax rate increase.
Town officials expect that the budget, if approved, would result in an average increase to the municipal property tax rate of 12 cents per $1,000 of valuation. Although the exact rate would vary depending on a given property owner’s fire district, that would translate to an extra $48 on a $400,000 home.
Town Manager Julia Griffin said labor costs had the greatest effect on this year’s proposal.
As with many public employers, the town this year is facing a 12.5 percent increase in health insurance costs for employees, as well as a 7.8 percent increase to the town’s share of retirement contributions.
Griffin said the health costs could have been worse — initial estimates called for a 19.7 percent increase. “That was the dark number we were focused on all winter,” Griffin said. “So much of the impact on our expenses is labor.”
Last year’s Town Meeting featured a vigorous debate over the size of spending increases and the town’s decision to move away from using the Labor Department’s consumer price index — a monthly measurement of changes in costs of household goods and services that some analysts equate with inflation — as a guideline for budget increases.
That discussion was sparked by a roughly $320,000 increase in the proposed operating budget, contributing to a 1.6 percent tax rate increase.
Griffin said town officials, in preparing this latest budget proposal, have done “a number of things” to curb expenses, which may also be offset by anticipated extra revenue in the coming year.
Residents in May will be asked to approve three union contracts that, among other gains for the town, feature a biweekly payroll schedule, rather than the weekly payments employees have received for all of Griffin’s 21 years in office. Griffin anticipates this change may save $15,000 to $20,000 annually.
“In the grand scheme of things it wasn’t huge,” she said, “but it was a major accomplishment in terms of finding ways to be more efficient.”
She also noted that the union contracts allow the town to shift to a lower-cost health plan that, although it will not be implemented this coming year, could help offset potential future cost increases.
Finally, Griffin said, Hanover officials have resisted budgeting for anticipated revenue increases stemming from statewide budget proposals, including a potential $250,000 windfall from a reboot of New Hampshire’s general revenue sharing program and a possible $110,000 in state highway aid.
“We may have that money flow into this budget. Some communities are already planning on it in their budget,” she said. “Our budget does not count on that happening.”
Also in the budget is $123,400 to extend a sidewalk in the area of Storrs Road along Lebanon Street, also known as Route 120, that town officials say will improve safety for pedestrians in the area. An additional $27,700 will finance a new pedestrian crossing signal at the light by the Hanover Co-op and service station.
Proposed Zoning Changes
Eight zoning amendments are on the ballot, many of them housekeeping changes meant to clarify the town’s rules or aid compliance with new or existing state laws.
Among the most substantive modifications is a proposal — Article 5 on the warrant — to eliminate some restrictions on senior housing development so that retirement facilities would be regulated in the same way as other types of housing development.
“We treat senior housing in a more restrictive way than we treat all other types of housing,” said Planning and Zoning Director Robert Houseman, citing a fixed cap on housing density and a minimum lot size, both of which the amendment would abolish. “We took a step back and said, ‘Wouldn’t it make sense to treat all housing stock the same and permit them in the same way?’ ”
Kendal at Hanover, a continuing care retirement center on Lyme Road, is preparing a large expansion to the south of its existing campus, but Houseman said the changes were not inspired by those plans.
“This is not being driven by Kendal,” he said. “This is being driven by the town’s evaluation of zoning as a whole and realizing that we are an aging society and that the ordinance had some very restrictive aspects that pushed development to large parcels on the outer edge of the community.”
A separate amendment, Article 7, would allow more density in the “RO” district, a small area north of the intersection between Lebanon and South Park streets, where municipal officials hope to add more units to the Summer Park senior living facility owned by the town.
All of the zoning amendments but one have the Planning Board’s support, the outlier being a proposal to delete and replace the existing definitions of “student residence” in the campus “institutional” district and in residential districts.
The amendment was petitioned to the warrant by Carolyn Cole, an attorney who is representing former Dartmouth fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon in a zoning dispute over this section of the ordinance.
After losing ties to Dartmouth amid allegations of alcohol violations, the fraternity found itself mired in a zoning fight with the town over whether it could maintain its status as a student residence — and thus allow people to live in the house it owns on College Street — without being associated with the school, as zoning regulations appear to require.
Cole, who said the current regulations were vague and caused uncertainty, according to an informational packet from town officials, is proposing to amend the definition of “student residence” with language that does not imply a connection to an “institution,” whether Dartmouth or any other.
Cole resorted to a petitioned article after Planning Board members declined to approve the amendment for inclusion on the warrant, saying the Zoning Board of Adjustment already had provided clarity with a ruling on the case, citing an ongoing court case that may provide further direction, and noting that removing the requirement of institutional affiliation would also eliminate a degree of health and safety oversight.
The board earlier this year had been considering its own change to the ordinance, which would have clarified that student residences in the “I” district must operate in conjunction with Dartmouth, specifically, but reconsidered for similar reasons, Houseman said.
In town elections, two incumbent Selectboard members, Bill Geraghty and chairman Peter Christie, are running unopposed for re-election.
Two residents, Margarethe “Mitsu” Chobanian and Elizabeth Marshall, are running for one Etna Library trustee position in hopes of replacing the departing incumbent, Kim Wilson.
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or at 603-727-3242.