So when did Lebanon become the City of Apartments?
According to the Valley News, some 2,000 new “dwelling units,’’ mostly very small apartments, are on the drawing boards. Someone has been busy while we’ve been waiting for the snow to melt so we can rake our yards.
Every now and then, I take the back road to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and marvel at Apartment and Condo Row. It’s impressive in a way, but it doesn’t really look like Lebanon. It doesn’t seem like the kind of place where people would sit outside, take walks, or wave or nod at neighbors.
No, they look like places where people go to work, come home from work, binge-watch TV, sleep, repeat. (I know I am generalizing, but I am on the high horse. Allow me to gallop on.)
As human warehouses go, they are OK-looking, better than the Great Wall of Walmart on Route 12A, a giant, windowless building that is one of the Seven Wonders of the Upper Valley. To be fair, they’ve used peppy colors on signage near the entrance, drawing your eyes away from the blank enormity before you.
If I were a clever, daring person, and not cheap, I’d pay to have someone make temporary roadside signs, the kind they sneak onto rights-of-way. My recent favorites were the blue-and-white DIRTY WINDOWS? signs that popped up all over the place. I amused my wife by calling out DAWTY WINDOWS? with a funny voice every time I saw one. It never grew old.
My signs in front of the apartment complexes would say NO AFFORDABLE HOUSING HERE! But I don’t imagine they’d stay up long.
It’s been reported that more than half of our “dwelling units’’ — such a cozy phrase — are rentals. Investors have bought several homes in my West Lebanon neighborhood and turned them into what appear to be cash cows, where unrelated people pay pretty good money for a bedroom and shared living space. Most are decently kept, but one nearby has a spare tire and rim out front. As lawn ornaments go, it is subpar.
Because I get myself worked up about such things now and then, I have looked at the city assessments of these properties. I don’t think their taxes reflect the cash flow, which irks me and makes me jealous. My house is all outflow, no income. But it is home, sweet home – though the property tax bill grows dearer by the year.
If I seem grouchy, it is because I am. Over the decades, the housing market has not served the people well. At least those people, often young, who need an affordable place to live. Working people who don’t make big salaries are commuting longer and longer distances, in used cars that may or may not be up to it, from outlying towns where rents are a little more bearable. (Don’t even get me started about high prices at the chain auto dealerships that have swallowed up our market.)
When we moved here in the 1980s, we were one of those young families. We found an apartment on Eldridge Street in Lebanon, owned by a friendly older couple, Ted and Lillian Jette. It was small, old-fashioned, but homey. They charged a weekly rent, something around 90 bucks, payable every Friday. Mr. Jette used to smile at our toddler son and say, “Adam, you’re quite the boy. Quite the boy.” We think fondly of those days in our “Mr. Jette apartment.”
Talk about commerce on a human scale!
Meanwhile, the expensive new housing mostly serves the Dartmouths — college and hospital. That could be annoying but our mega nonprofits also bring us some fine neighbors, solid homeowners, lively retirees and young doctors who can’t afford Etna yet.
Where would we be without them? They are the steady engines of our economy, along with the LISTEN thrift stores. That suggests something, but I’ll leave that to the experts who use words like bifurcated and hold design charrettes.
And so I’m glad that Lebanon’s City Council is taking another look at housing and development. What do we need and what do we want? Could we manage growth in a way that eases the tax burden or at least holds it steady? Could we have — gulp — actual affordable housing? Or am I kidding myself?
As for us, we have owned the same humble bungalow for over 40 years. It was retirement ready. We downsized right from the start. But now we are in the awkward position of wanting lower city spending but appreciating city services — the library, schools, recreation and parks, public works, public safety, even the landfill.
Oh, well. I’ll turn my thoughts to the things we actually can change. Spring is springing. Birds are making a racket. We’ll keep calm and carry mulch to the staging areas. Better days ahead!
Dan Mackie lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.