Jackie Carter has lived in the town-owned Pike House in Lyme, N.H., for nine years with her family. The town is reevaluating what to do with the property. (Photo by Jennifer, Hauck, Valley News)
Residents made it clear to the Selectboard that they don’t want the town to sell its rental house next to the police station and town offices at a public meeting this week.
Nearly a dozen residents spoke up in favor of keeping the town-owned building, known at the Pike House. “The town may have a future need for that property and it would be unwise to let go of it,” Phil Kinsler said.
Lyme Town Administrator Dina Cutting informed the tenant, Jackie Carter, in January that the Selectboard was considering getting out of the home rental business. Carter, 42, has asked to stay until her youngest child, Isabella Ladd, graduates from Hanover High School in 2029. Carter, a single mom, and her three children moved into the house nine years ago.
“You may be wondering, ‘Why do I want to continue renting?’ ” Carter said at the meeting. “It quite simply is my home. The last home in our family that my now deceased father was ever in, the home I have spent holidays in for nearly 20 years and the place where my children have spent time in as a guest, or a tenant for almost their entire lives.”
In February, the Selectboard sent a real estate agent to the house who informally assessed it at $375,000, Judith Brotman, chairwoman of the three-member board, said in a recording of the board’s March 4 meeting.
Brotman noted on Wednesday that “$350,000 to $400,000 could help the town.” She also noted the town may want to consider raising the rent to be more in line with market value.
Carter, office manager for Dartmouth College’s safety and security department, pays $1,458 a month in rent, plus utilities for the three-bedroom, 1½-story house. If she has to move, her family will be priced out of Lyme, she said.
The median cost of rent for a three-bedroom apartment in New Hampshire was over $1,900 in 2024. In Grafton County, the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment was about $2,000, according to New Hampshire Housing’s 2024 Residential Rental Cost survey.
At the 2008 Town Meeting, residents voted to buy Pike House along with a garage, wood shop and since demolished barn for $599,000 from longtime Lyme resident Ray Clark to expand office space for town officials.
At the time of the sale, Jackie’s sister Jenn Carter, who now lives in West Lebanon, resided there.
Pike House resides on the same 3-acre lot as the town offices and police station and shares a septic and well with the buildings, making it a potentially difficult property to sell.
“Get someone who can subdivide this property. You can’t,” longtime surveyor Wayne McCutcheon said.
Board member Ben Kilham agreed with residents. “I certainly think the town should not sell the building and keep it because we will, in all likelihood, need expansion in the not-so-distant future,” he said.
But board member David Kahn argued continuing to rent out the building is not the right choice. “I have nothing against you guys. You’ve been wonderful tenants,” he said gesturing to Jackie, Jenn, their mother, Karen, and Jackie’s 18-year-old son, Andrew Ladd, who were all in the audience. “But I view my job as a Selectman to be looking after the interests of the town.”
Kahn said he is concerned about the liability that being in the residential rental business poses to the town. He mentioned the property could be seized by the federal government if “criminal activity or drug use” were to happen there.
The meeting came to a head when Kahn said renting the house to Jackie Carter is costing the town because they have to pay high school tuition for her kids. Lyme pays $23,400 a year per student at Hanover High School.
“I don’t know if it’s fair to ask the citizens of the town of Lyme to use their taxes to subsidize an individual family like that,” he said, which upset many audience members.
“The idea of tying this in any way to school charges for children is grossly offensive,” Simon Carr said via Zoom. “You don’t do it for any other building in town. Come on, Mr. Kahn, get real and get civil.”
About 50 minutes after the meeting began, Brotman ended the meeting abruptly. “I’m all done,” she said. “I’ve sweated over this for years. I don’t need to be browbeaten.”
No decisions about whether to sell the property were made at the meeting.
Although all of the residents who spoke supported Carter’s effort to stay in the house, after the meeting, she still didn’t necessarily feel confident that the Selectboard will renew her lease, which is up July 1.
“Public opinion matters,” Karen Carter said in an effort to reassure her daughter.
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