I’m here to recommend we vote NO on Article 7 at the upcoming town election on May 12.
Why? Because Article 7 is a monument to liberal hypocrisy, supported by the town’s most privileged residents, specifically engineered to make Hanover’s housing crisis worse for students and everyone unfortunate enough not to have moved here decades ago.
Don’t take my word for it. No one serious about improving housing in Hanover supports the article, and that’s why the Hanover Planning Board recommends voting against it.
That the average home in Hanover, which is generally modest and extremely dated, costs over one million dollars does not seem to concern Article 7 supporters.
Like many of you, I’m a recent Hanover transplant who struggled to find off-campus housing. My search was doubly challenging because I’m ineligible for on-campus housing due to the fact I am forty years old.
But don’t let my geriatric condition distract us from the shared purpose of ensuring future Hanover residents — student and otherwise — don’t suffer our same fate of paying extortionate rent for homes where the appliances are older than the tenants. This is not hyperbole. This was true for our awful rental experience, even at my advanced age.
Article 7 is textbook NIMBYism, and the so-called “compromise” it offers is fundamentally dishonest. The architect of Article 7, Randy Mudge, is a literal architect who understands construction costs. Thus he understands the “development” Article 7 purportedly supports will never happen because building and financing expenses make it functionally impossible.
Mudge himself finally acknowledged as much in an April 23 article in The Dartmouth where he said that, if Article 7 passes, “mathematically, there will be fewer potential units to rent” anywhere near campus.
The slight of hand here is Mudge’s statements, “Our proposal promotes the development of existing multi-unit zoned properties,” and “That promotion should provide significant rental units for all.” The proposal does no such thing. It offers no plan for development, it promotes no vision for the future aside from restricting development to a few parcels well outside of town and essentially saying, “Good luck with that.” He doesn’t care what happens, as long as affordable housing doesn’t happen.
Stopping development entirely around the College is exactly the outcome Mudge and his supporters want. Article 7 is a thinly veiled vehicle to achieve that end. I just wish he had the courage to say so publicly rather than pretend otherwise.
We could have a much healthier debate if the vote was framed honestly and clearly. It’s a choice between freezing Hanover’s development in the 1970s and worsening a dire housing market, or enabling the town to grow in a way that builds a community for everyone instead of real estate value for the few.
It’s a choice between breaking the social contract and punishing the next generation of Hanover residents, or upholding the social contract and building a better future.
That stark choice is lost on many because Article 7 is about zoning, and zoning is boring as hell. But as with brushing your teeth, if you ignore this act of dull hygiene, bad things happen. Hanover ignored zoning updates for decades and in doing so created the punishing real estate market we’re living in now.
Last year, voters approved a meaningful change in zoning which allows for development that will improve the housing market for everyone. Article 7 is designed to not only repeal that new zoning, but to stifle any new development around the College, permanently.
Too often the Dartmouth student body is treated as Hanover’s commodity rather than our community. You are treated as tourists who many feel do not deserve a vote in local elections. At a recent planning board meeting, one resident in support of Article 7 said she was “frustrated, honestly, by the fact that there was a large student community that voted,” in favor of last year’s zoning reforms.
At that same meeting, when a Dartmouth student spoke against Article 7, another resident dismissed him by saying, “I just think he doesn’t have skin in the game.”
I disagree. I have no shortage of qualms with the administration of the College, but it’s inarguable that the prosperity of our town is a direct result of the student body. A body which existed long before any current resident, and will exist long after we’re all gone. Generations of students who create and power a world class institution — in rural New Hampshire of all places.
In return, Hanover has created a housing market that is hostile to both you and anyone else who would like to join and serve this community.
Short-sighted supporters of Article 7 will argue student housing is an institutional problem, not a civic one. In reality, the housing crisis extends well beyond campus borders and threatens the health of both our region and our country.
These same people claim to want “smart” and “thoughtful” housing development in town. They will tell you affordable housing in Hanover is important. They will also make every effort to stop any development anywhere near where they live. They see no irony in this.
The price of community is inconvenience. And for too long the young and less-than-wealthy have been asked to shoulder that burden in Hanover. We all deserve better, and it’s time we share that cost.
Yes, voting in a municipal election is also boring as hell, which is one reason many non-student residents don't vote. This allows a small group of voters to enact civic policies like Article 7 that pull the ladder of prosperity up behind them.
Given this is the last year the student body will be able to vote using a student ID, this is the best and easiest opportunity to make a statement through your vote. I hope you’ll use the opportunity to insist the town supports the development we all need by voting NO on Article 7.
William Kearny is a Hanover resident. Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
