Lebanon
More traffic, a worsening housing shortage and greater demand for city services are just a few of the problems that could stem from more development in town, some residents argue.
There’s also the question of whether to upgrade Lebanon’s sewer system, which would require millions in construction costs to make room for new housing and businesses.
“This ‘Let us become the Silicon Valley’ dream is just that,” said former City Councilor Steve Wood, the co-owner of Poverty Lane Orchards. “It is naive to believe that development to broaden the tax base will lower Lebanon residential taxes.”
“I think this whole notion runs hard against (the city’s) guiding principles,” he added.
Those principles were formally adopted by the City Council in 2010, and start with a “residents-first” policy that dates back to 2008.
“All actions and policies of the government of the City of Lebanon shall be intended first and foremost to benefit the current residents of Lebanon,” the policy says.
That sentiment was so important to Lebanon’s leaders that it also is the first guiding principle in the city’s 2012 Master Plan, which is supposed to guide Lebanon through 2030.
But some current city councilors argue that the residents-first policy is not jeopardized by plans to attract new businesses and create more housing. That’s because biomedical and biotech businesses will be positive for the city’s current residents and might slow the march of yearly tax increases.
“I do think that the promotion of high-tech ties in extremely well with the residents-first policy,” Assistant Mayor Tim McNamara said. “By getting more nonresidential taxpayers into the city, we will hopefully increase the overall tax base at a lower rate than if we did nothing.”
Spurred on by an existing high-tech community, the presence of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and the proximity to Dartmouth College, the city is considering two measures to attract new businesses.
The City Council soon will discuss the creation of a new commission that would be charged with helping guide development, and there’s ongoing talks to develop a marketing effort that would target high-tech firms.
It’s the high-tech industry, more than any other, that’s most likely to benefit Lebanon into the future, providing good jobs and tax revenue while also minimally impacting the city’s neighborhoods, City Manager Shaun Mulholland said in an interview.
That’s in contrast to the low-skill industrial and manufacturing jobs that are becoming less frequent in today’s economy, and could further decline as globalization continues, he said.
Tech companies that thrive in the Upper Valley often pay well and maintain a small staff, meaning less traffic and smaller buildings than those needed for other uses, he said.
The startup industry also tends to value sustainability and makes greater use of solar and green energy to power ventures, he said.
Overall, the city manager predicted that biotech and biomedical firms in particular will prove to be a “net positive” for Lebanon in the long run.
But Wood said similar efforts have been tried and failed.
Since the 1960s, city officials have hoped that growing business and developing housing will benefit the city, but those efforts all resulted in a higher cost of living.
“We have 40-plus years of experience to show us that it’s wrong,” he said.
Wood also took issue with the notion of Lebanon paying for additional services that are needed to serve a larger workforce. The city’s taxpayers already shoulder some of the burden to pay for the airport and existing businesses, he said, and they shouldn’t have to foot the bill for more.
“Why would Lebanon residents think this is a good idea?” he asked. “Just calling it Silicon Valley doesn’t make it different from the misguided notions that growth willy-nilly will be good for residents of Lebanon.”
The issue came to a head earlier this month, as city councilors reviewed a proposed $2.5 million project to upgrade Lebanon’s sewer system.
The east side of the city has been under a partial building moratorium since last year, when engineers found that a portion of the sewer system was nearing its capacity. Mulholland said he hopes to lift at least part of those limitations with two projects that would expand capacity and allow for greater development east of the Terri Dudley Bridge on Route 4.
But some officials questioned whether the money needed to kick-start construction would place too great a burden on residents as the city works to complete a $75.3 million effort to separate sewer and stormwater in about 15 miles of the sewer system.
“It seems that the urgency of this is about future growth,” Councilor Shane Smith said in an audio recording of the Dec. 6 meeting. “If growth was a way of lowering our tax rate and being a cheaper place to live, I imagine Lebanon would currently be one of the lower-cost places to live and not one of the higher-cost places.”
Councilor Erling Heistad also questioned the additional sewer improvements, saying the city already is home to the bulk of housing and jobs in the Upper Valley.
The city was promised lower taxes when several commercial developments came to Lebanon, he said.
“You know what? Taxes never ever went down, and I cannot attribute any decrease in taxes to any development that actually happened. Not in this town, anyway,” Heistad said in the recording. “I don’t think that development makes it cheaper for the people living here.”
But Councilor Karen Liot Hill argued that the city has an obligation to plan for its future, and the residents who might inhabit Lebanon someday.
She pointed to councilors who decided not to begin work on sewer upgrades more than a decade ago, when there was aid available to communities.
It’s largely because of that decision, which kept fees low in the moment, that the federal government intervened and ratepayers now are on the hook for more than $75 million, she said.
“I think (councilors) probably thought they were doing something good for the current residents of Lebanon by not complying, by kicking it down the road,” she told the City Council.
In an interview, Liot Hill said high-tech businesses already are choosing to relocate to Lebanon, which has for years fostered companies that grow out of the hospital and college. The city is home to Hypertherm, Fujifilm Dimatix and 18 startups renting space at the nonprofit Dartmouth Regional Technology Center, she said.
Although there are some efforts to attract new business, the city’s approach is part of a long game to build a stable economy, she added.
“In the Upper Valley, we are incredibly fortunate to be in a position where we have constant economic development,” Liot Hill said, adding that development helped shield the region from the 2008 economic crisis.
“We have been a bright spot in the national economy when it comes to high-tech development,” she said.
Promoting new development doesn’t run counter to the guiding principles, which were meant to help policymakers choose businesses and projects that would benefit Lebanon, Liot Hill said.
Mayor Sue Prentiss said that she’s considered the residents-first policy as a reminder to balance out Lebanon’s status as a regional hub with the knowledge that it’s the people who live here who are paying to make that possible.
The city has a population of 13,500, but officials have long said it doubles during the day as shoppers, patients and workers of DHMC and the Route 120 corridor commute to Lebanon.
“We have to be considerate of residents first because we are the hub for the Upper Valley,” she said. “More people come and work here, play here, eat here, get their health care here than actually live here.”
Prentiss said she doesn’t want to put a stop to that, but thinks policymakers should remember the folks who come home to Lebanon at the end of the day, and consider their interests first and foremost.
“It is an innate struggle between being a town and being a city,” she said, adding that to many, Lebanon has a unique, residential character.
State Rep. George Sykes, D-Lebanon, agreed that the principles were meant to strike a balance between two groups: those who worried about the negative effects of development and businesses who were looking to grow.
“It was a very complicated, difficult discussion to arrive at consensus and clarity,” said Sykes, who supports the city’s latest high-tech recruitment efforts.
Diversifying and growing new business not only contributes to the area economy but also provides a sense of job security that some former mill towns cannot rely on, he said. Communities such as Claremont and Franklin are hit hard when a single, major employer decides to close its doors — a fate that Lebanon should work to avoid, Sykes said.
“My feeling is that the current city manager’s concept of having a citizen commission to come together and really closely examine these things can move us in the best direction of the city,” he said.
The city plans to continue discussing future high-tech development, with the City Council expected to take up the creation of an economic development commission in February. Councilors are expected to decide on the sewer project Wednesday night as they work on Lebanon’s 2019 budget.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.