By Rod Hansen
Staff Writer

Affordable housing could spell the difference between keeping local residents or losing them to communities with more bearable shelter costs.

That’s one of the driving points in an updated master plan, which was presented to members of the New Boston Planning Board on Tuesday, Aug. 22.

“As New Boston continues to grow, it will be important to provide affordable housing opportunities to current residents as well as new residents,” reads one section of the master plan update draft.

“Without affordable housing, many town residents, especially the young adult working force and elderly populations, may be forced to seek affordable housing elsewhere,” the document says.

The average sales price for a single-family home in New Boston was $386,162 in 2005, according to the master plan update.

A family must make $112,282 in order to purchase a home in New Boston, according to the master plan update. However, the 2000 U.S. Census puts New Boston’s median household income at $66,020, or 59 percent of the recommended amount.

The master plan update paints a better picture for people seeking to rent property in this small Manchester suburb.

The average rental housing cost of 2000 was $806 per month. A yearly income of $32,340 was required to afford a two-bedroom rental property, according to the most recent census data.

The revised master plan also anticipates the amount of additional housing needed to keep pace with population growth. Housing units will have to increase 52 percent from 2000 to 2025, the report states. This totals an additional 752 units. Of these, 265 will be rental units in 2025, with the rest projected to be ownership units.

There are currently 1,576 housing units in New Boston.

The topic of housing occupies an 11-page section of the 228-page revised New Boston Master Plan draft.

Housing is one of eight subject headings addressed in the master plan update, with some other topics including population, existing land use, natural resources, economic development and transportation, among others.

The revised master plan update is the result of two and a half years of committee work, said Master Plan Committee spokesman David Ely.

The master plan update is a direct result of New Boston Speaks, a community input event that took place in March 2004. During that two-day event, residents evaluated the current state of New Boston and offered ideas for the community’s future.

The master plan update committee hosted another community input event in April of this year.

Both of these meetings aided in the update of the town’s master plan, a document required in the adoption of zoning ordinances.

Ely said the community input played an important role in assembling the updated master plan.

“This wasn’t just the work of a committee, this was the work of the town” Ely said. “What we’ve found mostly is that people like New Boston because it’s quaint, it’s rural and it’s an agriculturally oriented community.”

The adoption of an updated master plan will aid the planning board in creating new zoning ordinances to appear as warrant articles on the ballot for the March 2006 Town Meeting, Ely said.

Planning Board Chairman Peter Hogan said the updated master plan is also useful in its statements and objectives.

“You don’t want the master plan to be too specific,” Hogan said. “That would be a worse problem than vagueness; it would tie our hands.”

Jack Munn, a senior planner with the Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission, said town officials should use the master plan in developing warrant articles for the next two Town Meetings.

“I recommend you consider affordable housing as an issue you should approach first, and then address issues like conservation and economic development for the next Town Meeting,” Munn said.

Members of the planning board will host a public hearing on the updated master plan at their meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 12, at 7 p.m.

Copies of the master plan update draft will be available for public review online, at the library and town hall as of Sept. 1. The planning department will also make black-and-white copies available to the public for a nominal fee, Hogan said.