A Challenge to “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is”

Three Revolutions, recently featured on Vermont Public Radio, is a new Vermont-based crowd-funding portal whose mission is to bring the rise in social media platforms, the growing consumer demand for “natural, organic, local, sustainable” food sources, and community investment together to create an organization through which consumers can support the endeavors of farmers and other food innovators in their communities.

Here’s how it works:

(Photo Source)

Creating a campaign to seek funding is simple and applications may be submitted at any time. Once approved, a campaign will be active for sixty days. After those sixty days, 90% of profits are given directly to the “planters” to begin their business venture. (Source)

There are currently two open campaigns on Three Revolutions:

Furtile Turtle Slow Food Truck

Goal: $5,000   Ends: April 5

“The Furtile Turtle is a slow food truck, an offshoot of the Fertile Underground Natural Cooperative. We plan to bring healthy, local, and nourishing produce and food selections to areas where there is currently no access. We’ll also have delicious and hearty prepared foods to choose from, tried and tested recipes from our family that have been cooked and shared for years. The truck is also going to work in collaboration with Pasture to Plate to provide on-farm dinners, educational workshops, and opportunity for local farmers to produce value added products.”

Saving the Thorpe First Nation Organic Farm

Goal: $16,000  Ends: May 20

“The Thorpe First Nation Organic Farm is located in Historic Bucks County near Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania. It is one of the few Native-American owned farms in this part of America. We are a 145-acre farm surrounded by grand mansions on large tracts of land. In order for farming to survive here and elsewhere, it’s imperative that our cross-rural settings live in harmony with each another. As we greet people visiting our Farm we are spreading a message of the worth that comes from organic crops and animals, even as we share the terrain with very large homes.”

According to an interview with VPR, Three Revolutions hopes to expand well-beyond Vermont borders soon. But for now, it’s our diamond in the rough, featuring innovators from local communities who understand the power that nutritious, sustainable local food has to bring people together. Through Three Revolutions, these networks have been able to go from small, local bands of people within communities to also now including new supporters within the town, state, country and world, who are willing to back the food-loving innovator next door to help their dream become a reality.

You may join in supporting these campaigns or start your own on the Three Revolutions website.

A Review of Hanover Home and Condo Transactions: 2010-2012

The Barton Group has updated our analysis of Hanover sales for 2012 and through January from the Town Clerk’s records. Contact us if you want the underlying data and the information that we gathered from multiple sources if this market interests you.

Hanover is a town along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 11,260 at the 2010 census.^[1] CNN and Money magazine rated Hanover the sixth best place to live in America in 2011,^[2] and the second best in 2007.^[3] Dartmouth College and the US Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory are located there. The Appalachian Trail crosses the town.

Here are some key conclusions:

* Hanover listings were relatively flat in 2012 vs 2011 at 120, but 20% more (83 total) sold as some concerns about Obama tax increases spurred year-end closes;
* Due to this tax planning skew, the average selling prices jumped 10% to $629K on average;

* Based on a 22% gain in volume and 10.2% gain in price, the total make sales volume rose 33% to $53.4M

* The premiums streets in terms of price realization are: Rope Ferry Road, Occom Ridge, Rip Road, Parkway and Three Mile Road ($380 – 581 sq/ft);

* There remain significant parcels of land in current use at extremely low assessments – such as Ruddsboro Road (150 acres at 178 Ruddsboro Road sold 1/16/13 for $238K which was 255% over its $93K assessment);

* The condo stock in Hanover is aging and over-assessed, as a result of depreciation and overtaxation, prices continue to fall 3-7% per year; Assessments are 5-10% above transaction prices although the recent opening of the Gile Condo Community next to the Dartmouth Hitchcock hospital complex.

* The average condo of 1,225 square feet sold for $225 sq ft, or nearly 40% below the average selling price for homes in Hanover (55 condo sales vs the top 30 home sales from 2010 through January 2013);

* Transaction prices for the top 30 home sales were $1.13M while the average condo sale tranascted for just a quarter of that or $259K.

* The top 30 home transactions (ex condos) between 2010 and 2012 in Hanover traded at 107% of assessment for average 2,990 square foot properties at $272 per square foot.

Hanover 2014 Budget Acknowledges Serious Federal & State Risks

So, a refreshingly clear assessment of the real impact of failure of leadership at the Federal and State levels. At a time when “kicking the can down the road and ignoring our $16 TRILLION Federal debt is the stock in trade, an experienced town manager rejects the jellyfish approach of ignoring the challenges facing a core Upper Valley town.

From Town Manager Julia N.Griffin’s Summary:

Fiscal Climate
For what is now the fifth year in a row, the budget proposal before you has been developed in the midst of what continues to be an enormously complex economic downturn, further complicated by the most debilitating level of political partisanship at the national and state level that I have seen in my 28 year career in local government management. To say that political dysfunction rules would be an understatement. Sadly, local communities and our citizens are suffering as a result – either as their local property taxes increase as local communities attempt to shoulder the service burdens abdicated by the Federal and State government, or as services are reduced to avoid the specter of raising taxes or fees. Whether we at the local level stand by and watch Federal programs defunded or State programs eviscerated or completely eliminated, in the final analysis, downshifting
abounds and the buck stops at the local level. Just a few examples of the “death by a thousand cuts” phenomenon that continues to challenge us at the local level include:

1. • Elimination of multiple Federal Department of Transportation transit and transportation funding programs upon which our region has relied for transportation and transit capital improvement funds, combined with a $700 million shortfall in the State’s Transportation capital budget, resulting in increasingly under-maintained roads and bridges;
2. • Funding reductions in agencies like Housing and Urban Development, leading to, among other things, a freeze on new Section 8 subsidized housing certificates in our region, upon which we rely to help residents in need secure subsidized housing;
3. • Steep Medicare and Medicaid funding cuts at the Federal level, compounded by the State’s “grabbing” of Medicaid funds to balance the State budget – funds which have traditionally been paid to hospitals and social service agencies – which has severely impacted the operations of local social service agencies, resulting in increasing numbers of seniors and the poor seeking help from local municipal welfare offices, Hanover’s included;
4. • The State’s elimination of general revenue sharing and shared Business Profits Tax in FY 2010 which previously returned $177,000 per year in revenue to Hanover (2.2% tax rate impact);
5. • Elimination of the State’s 35% subsidy for Group II public safety employees in 2011 ($120,511 or a 1.5% tax rate impact), coupled with the unrelenting biannual increases in employer mandated contributions resulting from years of mismanagement of the State’s Retirement System investment portfolio;
6. • Reduction in the motor vehicle registration fee assessed by the State in 2012, resulting in the loss of $40,000 in State shared revenue which Hanover traditionally utilized to offset the annual paving program (a .5% tax rate impact);
7. • A “temporary suspension” in the statutorily established increase in amount of Meals and Rooms tax to be shared with municipalities by the State, in spite of the general growth of that revenue source – what should have been a continued steady climb toward sharing a full 40% of the revenue source with municipalities stopped at 28% and has slid back down to 24% as of 2012.
8. • “Delaying and Deferring” (aka: expropriating) the statutorily required 20% State Aid Grant for all water, wastewater and landfill projects, including $45,000 owed annually to Hanover for our most recently completed wastewater treatment plant upgrade;
9. • Wholesale reductions in State staff across a host of State agencies, from Health and Human Services to Environmental Services, State Police to Revenue Administration, Department of Transportation to Department of Resources and Economic Development, leading to elimination of many State services and much longer delays in receipt of State services that communities rely upon (motor vehicle, permit review and issuance, legal support from the Attorney General’s Office, maintenance of State roadways, bridges and streetlights, etc);
10. • Significant increases in State fees, from dam permits to wetlands permitting, State-mandated laboratory testing to State-issued certifications;
11. • Plummeting interest earnings from investment of short term capital, which once generated as much as $350,000 per year and now hovers around $50,000 (a 3.5% tax rate impact);
12. • And the floor amendment adopted by Town Meeting last May, raising the Veteran’s Tax Credit to the maximum $500 allowed by state law resulted in the loss of an additional $72,000 in tax revenue as many additional veterans chose to register for the significantly higher, permanent property tax credit – resulting in an additional 1% increase in the municipal tax rate. And with that as backdrop, we now sit, poised on a precipice – on the one hand, awaiting word on the threatened but continually postponed “fiscal cliff” at the Federal level, with looming,potentially substantial budget cuts across a wide swath of agencies that provide funds to states.

The Town of Hanover FY2014 Proposed Budget is now available on the Town’s website. Citizens are encouraged to attend one or more of the Public Hearings beginning Monday, February 25, 2013 to participate in the discussion and the budget adoption process as the Board of Selectmen consider the budget proposed by the Town Manager for the upcoming fiscal year (to begin July 1, 2013).

Links: http://www.hanovernh.org/pages/hanovernh_admin/FY2014BudgSumm

The Early History of Hanover NH

The Early History of Hanover NH

The earliest center of local activity, the establishment of Hanover Center in 1761 predates the establishment of the College by eight years. Fronting the Parade Ground, is an impressive grouping of late 18th- early 19th century structures including several residences, a schoolhouse and the Congregational Church, unified by their white-clapboarded exteriors and simple lines. To the west is the First Congregational Church of Hanover in Hanover Center and south of the Church is the Hanover Center Cemetery. To the south are several early brick structures. New construction along the east side of Hanover Center Road detracts slightly from this historic landscape that should be protected through National Register and local historic district designation.

Practically since its establishment in 1769, the Dartmouth College campus has been a showplace of American architecture, bearing the imprint of the visions and buildings of a variety of designers. Late 18th century buildings, many of which have been moved several times to accommodate the growth of the College, coexist with numerous Georgian Revival structures dating to the tenure of College architect Charles Rich (c. 1900) and commissions of Jens Larson who sought to create a new focus for the Campus in Baker Library. Several important structures by Ammi B. Young and fine examples of the Romanesque Revival also figure prominently on the Campus.

Source:Hanover Master Plan Chapter 6: Historic and Cultural Resources, 29 July 2003http://www.hanovernh.org/Pages/HanoverNH_BComm/planning/masterplan/hist.pdf

Reviewing 2011 in the Strongest Town Market in the Upper Valley

By Celina Moore Barton, Project Manager, Sotheby’s International Realty

Hanover New Hampshire shines as the strongest town market in the area I like to call “UV Switzerland” as it crosses over the paired states of Vermont and New Hampshire, but also includes populations and their towns in Maine, Massachusetts and New York more broadly. To be sure, 2011 was a good year for Hanover real estate, though price declines in properties over the last five years have just brought average clearing prices down to town tax assessments. The housing price surge from easy credit led to a 2006 peak in housing prices in the Upper Valley, but they have slid annually by 5% or more since then.  A variety of sources like Zillow see Upper Valley prices down about a third from their peak  – about an average outcome for many U.S. communities in the past few years.

In reviewing almost sixty MLS-listed and private transactions over the past twelve months, it’s clear that Hanover is the strongest town market in the Upper Valley. Property owners typically listed properties on average at 6% over the town assessment, but the average property sold near assessed value.  The premium priced streets in Hanover are Occum Ridge, Meadow and Moody Lane, Rip and Rope Ferry Road, and Parkway.

Normally, that would suggest an efficient marketplace but the variability in the market expectations is reflected in another 20 properties currently offered and tracked by real estate market data firm Zillow. Among all 78 properties, the average transaction price or asking price ranges from $600/square foot to $100/square foot. Generally, properties over 4,000 square feet top out at $400/square foot, with the exception of 5 Meadow Lane in Hanover at $562/Sq.ft. The average price was $284 per square foot.