Nancy Ladd has two words that sum up a place like Warner – boomerang town.

Kids grow up at the base of Mount Kersarge, counting the days until bags are packed and a drive down I-89 brings them away from the small town of 3,000 residents.

Fast forward a few years, and moving boxes return – the destination set to the town where they grew up. This time, perhaps, a partner and kids are in tow.

“The children go to the big city and then they want to start a family, and they think, ‘I should raise my family in a nice town like Warner,’ and they move back,” said Ladd, the town librarian and longtime resident.

The town of Warner, just 20 miles from the state capital, has not one but two covered bridges that cross the Warner River. When the leaves change and a drive through country road yields vibrant oranges, yellows and reds, visitors arrive to celebrate with a fall foliage festival. Residents will gather for a second time next fall, to celebrate the town’s 250th anniversary – an event that has already kicked off with the unveiling of a new mural.

There’s a challenge, though, in Ladd’s perspective these days. With prices high and housing inventory low, the idea of moving back to a small, residential community isn’t an affordable option for many young families.

Yet, like many New England communities where neighbors work together, Warner is a town where residents have an answer to most problems. But with housing comes a domino effect of questions. What happens to a downtown with small, locally owned shops that is already fighting the rising tide of commercial development? How can the same spirit of community solutions dovetail with a state-wide housing shortage?

Eyes on housing

As Rebecca Courser sits at a folding table in the Upton Chandler House Museum on Main Street, the pastel wallpaper and wood paneling tell a story of the historic 1817 home. But she isn’t thinking about past tales of lives lived in town. Instead, she pauses to think about a solution to a very current problem: housing in Warner.

Courser’s family history in town dates back to the 1800s. For generations, her family has grown up, moved away and come back to Warner. She’s one of the boomerangs.

The Coursers embody the close-knit community the town hopes to maintain – one in which children, siblings and friends raise the next generation without moving away.

To continue this legacy, a variety of housing options are needed, said Courser. Affordable housing, in the form of multi-family homes or apartments atop of storefronts, is necessary to provide starter options for young professionals or manageable downsizes for empty-nesters.

“Everybody’s experiencing a housing issue. It’s not just workforce housing we need; we also need housing for older people who want to downsize but they don’t want to leave the community. They don’t want to go to Pembroke. They don’t want to go to Concord,” she said. “They would like to stay here, but there’s nothing in between for them.”

Town assessing data obtained by the Monitor shows single-family homes dominate in town. Out of the 1,175 residential properties in town, less than 30 are multifamily. Put another way, 97.5% of all homes are built and designed as single-family houses.

Properties currently for sale in town include four vacant lots and two run-down single-family homes being sold for cash only and in as-is condition. Essentially, there are no move-in ready houses anywhere in Warner.

But with a strict zoning ordinance and a desire to maintain the historic feel of the town, a tension comes into play between preserving the old but needing to build to attract the new.

The decade-old town master plan foreshadows these problems. In 2008, residents participated in a survey that showed many feared young and old residents won’t be able to afford living in town. Simultaneously, they were also concerned about preserving the small-town feel of the community.

Fast forward to 2022 and plans for a new apartment complex at Exit 9 of Interstate 89, perhaps best embodied this tension unfolding. On an open parcel of land north of Main Street, developers proposed a three-story, 24-unit workforce housing development.

In public comments to the planning board about the proposal, where dozens of residents wrote in opposition to the project, submissions often referred to a section of the zoning code that outlines factors town leaders must consider when reviewing new projects. One piece of criteria put a nail in the building’s coffin – development “must be compatible with Warner’s character as a historic New England town.”

“There’s zoning regulations; they have to meet the regulations. And it has been perceived as being anti-development or all that, but it’s really trying to guide just the development in the way that we want it,” said Ladd.

The proposal from Comet LLC was addressed at multiple planning board meetings before developers withdrew the application.

It’s not the first time residents have vocalized clear disdain about development in the community. Decades ago, a proposal to build housing on Mount Kearsarge launched a two-year community campaign in opposition.

“Spare Mt. Kearsarge” was soon branded on bumper stickers and pins. Charlie Albano, a town resident since 1974, still has a box of mementos.

In stopping the development of higher-end homes, town residents also put on their fundraising hats. Enough money was raised during this time to help purchase the land and designate it as conservation forestry.

“That was an example of Warner taking action and protecting the environment,” said Albano.

Community involvement

For residents like Bob Blake, land trusts are the clear solution to the need for housing. When a trust is in place, a clear direction is set for the plot, often with ties to agricultural, environmental or conservation goals in mind. One new goal is to provide affordable housing.

The Kawasiwajo Community Land Trust, which Blake is involved with, hopes to build a link between the history of farming in town with affordable housing. Foster Farm, which dates back to the 1760s, is the trust’s guinea pig.

Foster Farm is now a revitalized worksite and home. To live in the house, tenants work in the agricultural industry, even directly on the property’s farm.

The land trust now is looking for other properties to continue this model in hopes of bringing new residents to town.

“There’s all sorts of people that really can’t afford to live in and create this community, this rich community that we’re trying to sustain, so it’s very exciting,” said Blake.

A common theme in Warner is community intervention. When a problem arises, residents try to find a solution.

“The community guides its future quite actively. So when an issue is identified, people pull together and they work,” said Ladd.

Town residents know this to be true time and time again. Before the state advised residents to recycle, Warner was long ahead of the trend. Recycling is mandatory in town by residents’ own volition.

Solar is also a point of pride. The wastewater treatment plant runs on solar power. In 2017, residents voted to install a solar array to offset electrical usage in town. The town is also a member of the Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire – a group of 26 communities committed to collaboration in implementing clean energy solutions in the state.

“Warner is a pretty progressive, community-centered town – with our priorities being our children, the environment,” said Albano.

MainStreet Warner, Inc. is a non-profit in town that embodies this community focus. Started by Neil and Katherine Nevins and Katharine’s late brother, Jim Mitchell, the trio purchased the property that now houses their bookstore on Main Street in 1998.

Two years later, they established MainStreet Warner Inc., a nonprofit that supports the community and its needs. Over the past two decades, the organization has helped create a community park, implement programs to deal with food insecurity, launch literacy projects and provide local scholarships.

Their latest endeavor is restoring The Lodge, which was first built as a church in 1833, to serve as the organization’s headquarters. The restoration will include building a community kitchen to provide a space for food prep for pantries.

The Lodge will also serve as an indoor space for community performances.

“We’re interested in having a place where the community can appreciate some local theater or local groups. A community meeting space,” said Neil Nevins, “that fits into MainStreet Warner’s mission.”

And the space will serve as a new addition to Main Street, a focal point of town for residents.

Heart of the community

At the heart of many communities is a quaint Main Street downtown. The same is true in Warner.

This short stretch of road is home to the summertime farmer’s market, live music, museums and local businesses.

“Main Street is crucial. So for Warner, it’s the heartbeat. You can park your car and walk to the bank, the town hall, stores, library, post office,” said Courser.

This idea of a community center is a concept that has rallied Warner residents. Over the last two decades, commercial development at Exit 9, coupled with business challenges in the pandemic, have threatened the vitality of downtown.

Talks of development, and how it will impact the community, have attracted a diversity of opinions. In 2004, Plan NH, a non-profit focused on community design, hosted a design charrette for the area around Exit 9.

Over the course of a weekend, residents gathered to walk the land with architects and discuss the future of the space.

“Dealing with land issues, dealing with energy, dealing with conservation, dealing with water as well as arts and culture and the local economy, trying to maintain that as we were putting increased pressure from development on Exit 9, we had to really think about the risks of losing Main Street,” said Neil Nevins. “If we do, can we ever get it back?”

Two points were clear then – residents wanted to limit commercial development and oppose anything that would shift the heart of town from Main Street. Both sentiments still hold true today.

Yet, maintaining the heart of town is an ongoing challenge. When the pandemic came, local businesses were the hardest hit. Over the last three years, Foothills Restaurant and Bakery and Schoodac’s coffee shop both closed. The town’s independent pharmacy recently shuttered its doors as well.

With Market Basket and a McDonald’s occupying Exit 9, the effects of these developments still loom a mile down the road on Main Street.

“You drop $100 at a local community-based business, you get as much as $80 or $93 circulated, so it creates this money merry-go-round recirculating within the community,” said Neil Nevins.

In a way, the rehabilitation of Main Street serves as a blueprint for the housing solution. New businesses like Cafe One East, which now fills Schoodac’s storefront, complement old establishments like MainStreet Bookends of Warner.

Warner’s economic longevity is where Albano comes into play. He’s the chair of the Economic Development Advisory Committee – a group of residents that focus on the sustainability of local businesses.

When there’s a vacant storefront or new opportunity, Albano is quick to guide the conversation. When he noticed a need for child care in the community, he contacted the Boys and Girls Club, which is now planning to open a center in town.

Albano thinks a pharmacy would be a well-suited addition to Exit 9. Big-box commercial stores, though, not so much.

With his guidance, Mentis Science Inc., an aerospace and defense technology company, recently relocated its offices in Warner. This brought new jobs to town, said Albano.

But with new employees, comes the need for places to live in town. Again, it comes back to housing. He’s aware of the connection. Most residents are as well.

These tensions and possible solutions are guided by the same sense of community activism that has become a hallmark of Warner.

Now similar conversations about guiding housing solutions are percolating through town boards. A group of residents recently proposed forming a Community Housing Committee at a town Select Board meeting at the end of the year. Similar suggestions have been made to the Planning Board as well.

Residents hope they can come together and agree on a solution that allows the town to grow and thrive in the future.

“What I do know is that every time we wanted to move forward on something, you know, we were able to pull the community together,” said Neil.

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