Breakfast meeting notes 10.27.21
Breakfast Meeting 10.27.2021
Attending on Zoom this week was Paul, Marybeth, Walter, and guest Speaker: Carmen Lorenz, executive director of Lakes Region Developers
Guests: Ken Williamson and Barbara LaFlamme
Braden ran the meeting as Denise was away.
Tony challenged us with Trivia again.
Raffles: 50/50 won by Lora Miller. Mike Carrier was drawn for the card game raffle and did not chose the 6 of diamond. The pot has grown to $443 with 36 cards left in the deck.
Ken updated us on Plymouths Got Talent and acts coming in and raffle items are growing nicely. We have many very nice prizes in value from $100 to $1,500. We are still receiving Sponsorship support and they will be recognized on the PGT website, and during the live event on November 6th. Please follow-up with your sponsors. Raffle ticket sales are doing well and to date we have raised $15,000. The Special Presentation will be held on www.plymouthsgottalent.com or Pemi TV’s You Tube and Facebook page on November 6th. Recorded performances will continue. The raffle drawing and act winners will be done on 11/16/2021.
Mike Carrier provided us with District updates and many clubs are trying to figure out how to resume in person meetings. They are concerned as northern VT and NH have his Covid numbers at the present time. November 13th, Saturday, is District Training done on Zoom. Look for the invite with link. Register if you plan to attend. There is a Polio Plus fundraiser going on, help with your donation. There is a March of Dimes monument in VT where a large polio outbreak happened many years ago, so its very important in our District to help with this cause.
Mo LaFreniere’s guest speaker was Carmen Lorenz of Lakes Region Developers, and she spoke about the affordable housing issues in the Lakes Region. There number 1 mission for 30 years is to build homes and apartments for essential workers in Laconia, Wolfeboro, Ashland, Tilton, Meredith, and Gilford. 65% are working tenants. 27% are in healthcare, 21% in restaurants, 20% in retail and 17% in education, 12% in manufacturing. The organization has paid 100% of the property taxes totaling around $5 million over 28 years. A few years ago they expanded to starter homes and supportive homes for people in recovery.
Their focus is on housing with the Nh Governor setting up a council for strategic planning with very ambitious goals. Devoted more money than every and understands the big issue. Covid money for housing needs assessment and first time in 10 years study completed of impact land use projects.
Why is housing crisis so bad? Building for a decade + Pandemic + vacation homes equal 0 supply. It’s hard for developers to make money building moderate homes and new programs take time. Also, we’ve never fully recovered from the Great Recession. This has been going on for a long time and the Pandemic made it worse.
What is affordable housing? Built using public funds and grants. They deal in high qualify products for workers below a certain income level. Cannot charge rent above federally defined fair market rental value. It is determined that many essential workers can’t afford to live in the community they work in. Some people must commute a long distance to their job. Drivers of high costs are local zoning rules, so pay attention to your local zoning. For instance, we do not allow dense building, but developers need to make a profit and would be more interested in dense building. Plymouth and Laconia both have very strict zoning rules regarding this. Carmen would be happy to do a presentation to any of these zoning boards if anyone is interested.