Navigating Recovery Executive Director Daisy Pierce, left, gives a presentation on the amount and types of housing available in and around Laconia during the first meeting of the Citizens Ad-Hoc Review Committee at Lakes Region Mental Health Center on Tuesday evening. The committee was formed to study development of a city-owned parcel on Old North Main Street. (Gabriel Perry, The Laconia Daily Sun)
There’s a housing shortage in the Lakes Region and a workforce shortage here, too.
Daisy Pierce, executive director of Navigating Recovery of the Lakes Region, told a group of area residents and city leaders a serious shortage of housing in and around Laconia is affecting employers’ ability to retain workers.
At the first meeting of the Citizens Ad-Hoc Review Committee Tuesday night, formed to study development of a city-owned parcel on Old North Main Street, Pierce discussed data regarding housing in Laconia and in the broader Lakes Region — or lack thereof.
Some city police officers and firefighters commute up to an hour to get to work. Just 10% of firefighters live within city limits, and about two-thirds of police officers.
Statewide, the housing vacancy rate is 0.8%. In Belknap County, it’s effectively 0%. The last time Belknap County held a “healthy” vacancy rate, meaning about 5%, was 2018.
Discussing data gathered from New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, the U.S. Census Bureau and Lakes Region Community Developers, Pierce painted a picture of scarcity in the local and state housing market.
In June 2024, the median cost for a single-family home peaked at $540,000 statewide, according to Jess Williams of the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute.
“We just don’t have enough units for folks, and that’s why our housing costs keep going up,” Pierce said Tuesday evening.
There’s compounding effects from that paradigm. People spend money where they live, Pierce said, so the local economy suffers, too.
“You aren’t going to buy your groceries in Laconia and then drive home to Dover,” Pierce said. “When we think about not just how far our first responders are driving to come serve the community, we’re also thinking about all of that extra money that’s being spent outside of Laconia. If we had housing available for them, those dollars would be staying in the city.”
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, the average median income in Laconia is $68,427. The starting salaries for police officers and firefighters are $64,438 and $56,180, respectively. That figure for teachers is lower — they start at $41,600 — and licensed nursing assistants at Concord Hospital-Laconia start at $37,440.
“None of them make enough to actually afford either purchasing a home or renting a two-bedroom market-rate in Belknap County,” Pierce said.
The cost of rental housing in the county increased 44% since 2019, to a median price for a two-bedroom unit of $1,521. When considering the cost of utilities, an income of $68,840 a year, or $33 an hour, is needed to be able to “afford” to rent, meaning the burden makes up 30% of a household’s income.
The median home price in Laconia has increased 30.9% since 2024, Pierce said, according to the New Hampshire Association of Realtors. That’s in addition to a 14.2% increase over 2023, and works out to about $493,750. For a household to afford a monthly mortgage with an interest rate of 6.7% and a 20% down payment, the monthly mortgage would be about $2,548 — not including insurance, property taxes or utilities. The household income would have to be at least $114,000 a year.
The housing crunch also affects private sector employers. During her presentation, Pierce noted 144 of Titeflex Aerospace’s employees live in Laconia, while 154 live outside of the city. They’ve lost two employees in the last four months due to the high costs of housing.
Workforce housing — housing available to workers with no more than 30% of their income spent on rent and utilities or mortgage principal, interest taxes and utilities — is distinctly lacking in Laconia and the surrounding Lakes Region.
Looking at the entire continuum of Laconia area housing, which spans the gamut from the unsheltered population all the way to market-rate homeownership, “housing that’s affordable” is missing, Pierce said.
The city’s master plan refers to a pro-population growth land-use strategy with a focus on mid-market residential housing, and that’s what the property on Old North Main Street could potentially facilitate — permanent, primary, year–round and medium-density housing affordable to people making somewhere in the neighborhood of $41,000 to $82,000 a year.
But the costs of new construction are high. Pierce said on average it costs $250 to $270 per square foot to build new housing, according to Lakes Region Community Developers. That’s after the purchase of land and the costs of site work, and does not include permits or essential household appliances, and doesn’t factor in the effects of inflation.
The cost for one-acre lot in Laconia ranges between $9,875 and $107,000. To build a two-bedroom house would cost between $284,875 and $382,500.
“The only way we can make new construction affordable is to build medium- to high-density units,” Pierce said.
Laconia isn’t unique in this regard — the costs of housing are up all around the country, she explained. But there are innovative approaches to the problem. She referenced “pocket neighborhoods” designed by Ross Chapin Architects. Those are neighborhoods of clustered houses or apartments gathered around a shared space, like a garden, park or walkways, in urban, suburban or rural areas. The neighborhoods feature limited numbers of small dwellings, usually between 650 and 1,600 square feet in size, designed to foster neighborly interactions but preserve individual privacy.
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