Trade group now has 23 members working in a growing state sector

NH Life Sciences, a statewide trade group representing the life sciences industry in the Granite State, capped its inaugural year by adding several new members, bringing its total to 23, the group announced Thursday.

“As a newly formed association, our members have the unique ability to help guide the direction of New Hampshire’s life sciences growth,” said Andrea Hechavarria, president & CEO of NH Life Sciences, in a press release.

New Hampshire’s bioscience industry employed 9,330 individuals in 2023 across 1,048 business establishments, according to a Dec. 2 report by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization and the Council of State Bioscience Associations, of which NH Life Sciences is a member.

The new NH Life Sciences member companies are:

• Resonetics, a Nashua-based medical company that provides medical device advanced engineering, prototyping, product development and micro manufacturing.
• BA Sciences, a Salem-based company that offers a full-service analytical testing laboratory.
• Ovik Health, a Portsmouth-based health-care technology company with products ranging from wound and burn dressings, compression solutions, to tapes and bandages.

NH Life Sciences also added its first group of associate members who support the life sciences industry:

• Decco, a Nashua provider of specialized construction, maintenance, critical equipment handling and fabrication services to biopharmaceutical, technology and industrial clients throughout New England
• Ethikos Tech, an IT professional services firm.
• Middlesex Gases, a third-generation company manufacturing and analyzing specialty gases for biotechnology and life science companies that serves companies in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
• Piquette and Howard Electrical, a Plaistow-based service-disabled veteran-owned small business and regional electrical contractor that has an extensive portfolio of life sciences companies.
• SkyTerra, a Nashua-based provider of customized IT support for life sciences and biotech companies.

New Hampshire Life Sciences launched in January, when Novocure, an oncology company with its North American flagship location in Portsmouth, and Novo Nordisk, a global health care company with operations in West Lebanon, signed on as founding members. It has since added MilliporeSigma and Lonza Portsmouth as founding members, as well as other member and industry partners.

New Hampshire’s housing shortage dominated candidate platforms this election season, from the battle for governor to the races for the state House. And it has been top of mind for many voters, polls indicate. 

“The reality is the public opinion is changing on this, and it is changing in the way of looking for more housing options,” said Nick Taylor, the newly chosen director of Housing Action New Hampshire, a coalition of advocacy groups. 

A December UNH Survey Center Poll shows that 77 percent of Manchester residents support zoning code changes to increase housing, Taylor noted. And he pointed to an additional, statewide survey by Saint Anselm College in June that showed that 75 percent of respondents believe more housing needs to be built in their own communities.

“This is really important, as we look at the legislative session, to remember that the loudest voice is not the majority,” Taylor said. “The majority of New Hampshire residents want action on this and they need action on this.” 

Now, with Republican Gov.-elect Kelly Ayotte set to take office in January and expanded Republican majorities in the House and Senate, the challenge is on to meet those expectations. 

Here’s what housing advocates are watching for in 2025. 

Ayotte reiterates promises to reduce state approval processes

Ayotte said the voters she heard from during her campaign convinced her that the housing shortage is constraining the state’s growth. 

“This is really about our future,” Ayotte said. “It’s about our now and it’s about our future.”

Speaking to Elissa Margolin, the incoming director of housing programs at Saint Anselm College, Ayotte called for an “all of the above” housing approach, and repeated her promises to work to streamline the approvals process for housing developers from state agencies such as the Department of Environmental Services and the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

“You can get stuck in one place or the other, and you can languish there for a while,” she said. “And we all know that if that happens, money dries up, opportunity dries up.” 

Ayotte also expressed support for public-private partnerships, such as one that led to a $20 million affordable housing development in Rochester. She cited similar developments in Berlin and Swanzey that she visited as a candidate.

During her campaign, Ayotte also said she doesn’t want the state to interfere with local zoning policy, a position that could put her at odds with some of the bills this year. 

“I believe that local voice is important in New Hampshire, so I would not want to interfere with local decision-making,” Ayotte said in an Oct. 15 debate. 

But Ayotte also said she is a supporter of legislation that encourages accessory dwelling units. 

Lawmakers to push for assistance for affordable housing 

As lawmakers enter the 2025 budget year, Taylor highlighted legislation to boost the budget of the state’s affordable housing fund. That fund is run by New Hampshire Housing, a public agency, and helps to provide financial backing for new developments that include rents with specific affordability criteria.

Housing advocates will push to double the amount that goes into the affordable housing fund by increasing the contribution, Taylor said. Currently, the first $5 million collected by the state’s real estate transfer tax goes into the affordable housing fund; Housing Action New Hampshire will push for that to change to the first $10 million.

Advocates will also push to double the budget of the Community Development Finance Authority, which helps to fund infrastructure projects that include housing developments. That agency has a program that allows businesses to donate to designated development projects run by nonprofit organizations and receive 75 percent of that donation as a credit against their business taxes. That includes the creation of historic housing preservation tax credit.

Currently, the authority can offer businesses up to $5 million in tax credits per year; one bill next year would increase that limit to $10 million.

“This would continue that and help really amp it up,” Taylor said. “There’s always more requests than there are resources for it, and so let’s unlock that as a continued potential.” 

Renewed efforts for ADUs

Ever since Gov. Maggie Hassan signed a law in 2016 that allows New Hampshire residents to create one accessory dwelling unit by right, housing advocates have said more needs to be done.

The 2016 law was intended to encourage the creation of ADUs, which often utilize existing structures on a person’s property. But the law allowed cities and towns to impose a number of conditions onto the creation of ADUs, such as a high number of parking spaces, that advocates argue helps prevent homeowners from using them. 

A series of attempts to expand the ADU law in the state have fallen flat in the State House. Most recently, in May, the state Senate killed a House bill that would have expanded the number of allowable ADUs to two per property, and removed many of the restrictions that towns and cities often apply to the first ADU. Senate Republicans argued it could erode property values by preventing neighbors from objecting to over-development. 

But in 2025, Taylor and other housing advocates are hoping to pass a specific type of ADU legislation: a bill allowing for detached ADUs by right. 

Sponsored by Sen. Dan Innis and Rep. Joe Alexander, the bill would modify the existing accessory dwelling unit statute – which requires that towns and cities must allow for attached accessory dwelling units either by right or by special variance – to also include detached ADUs. 

“Communities will still have the ability to regulate certain elements of it, but let’s make this process really work and start to flush out some of the pieces where we’re seeing roadblocks across the board,” Taylor said.

Soil-based lot sizing

Many New Hampshire towns employ minimum size lots requirements, and tie those minimums to concerns about water and sewer access. 

But housing advocates  say the minimum acreage can be arbitrary, and not rooted in what the property could actually support. By setting a minimum lot size for all single-family homes that is unnecessarily large, towns can discourage development of small parcel homes, ideal for starter homes, say advocates. 

Enter soil-based lot sizing. Proposed legislation for next year would require towns and cities to use assessments by the Department of Environmental Services to determine the minimum sizes for properties based on water and sewer needs. If the department deems that the property needs only a half an acre of space to sustain a single-family home, the city or town could not require a larger minimum lot size, the legislation states. The bill would not apply to all single-family homes, but it would require towns to apply DES standards to at least half of the single-family homes in its borders, allowing towns to designate denser areas closer to town and less dense areas further away.

“(The legislation is) to say that if you’re going to create lot size minimums, let’s have it be based in science and what the soil can affect, as opposed to arbitrary measures around certain acreage,” Taylor said.

Nearly four decades later, a new documentary focuses on how she still inspires others and less on her fate aboard the space shuttle Challenger.

“Christa: From Ordinary to Extraordinary” from New Hampshire PBS explores her close relationship with the state and its capital, Concord, where she was picked from more than 11,000 applicants to be the nation’s first teacher in space.

“You say ‘Christa’ in New Hampshire, everyone knows exactly who you’re talking about,” Gov. Chris Sununu says in the film. Its release on Thursday comes three months after a bronze statue of McAuliffe was unveiled at the Statehouse, on what would have been her 76th birthday.

The documentary features interviews with community members, footage of scenes such as a Main Street parade for McAuliffe, and some of her comments — including her parting speech to Concord High School seniors in 1985. It reflects the pride and joy felt by residents then and now for an enthusiastic teacher who loved learning and telling stories.

McAuliffe was 37 when she was killed, one of the seven crew members aboard the Challenger when the space shuttle broke apart on live TV on Jan. 28, 1986. The documentary briefly touches on the tragedy.

“We all want to be remembered for who we were, what we cared about, what we loved, what we did, and not how we died,” Jeanne Gerulskis, the recently retired executive director of the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, says in the film. History through the eyes of ordinary people

McAuliffe taught social studies at Concord High School beginning in 1983. She created a course devoted to the history of American women that’s still taught there today. People in the documentary said she wanted students to see the role that ordinary people, particularly women, can play in history.

McAuliffe saw herself as one of them. A lover of field trips, she looked forward to bringing back her thoughts and journal from the shuttle mission “like a woman on the Conestoga wagon pioneering the West,” she had said in an interview.

Holly Merrow, a former student of McAuliffe’s in the women’s history class, feels the documentary embodies her spirit of wanting to inspire children.

“We felt like we were going to space, as well,” Merrow, now a teacher in Maine, recalled about McAuliffe at a recent screening of the film. Educating future generations

The documentary also talks about the importance of telling children who McAuliffe was.

In New Hampshire, many children learn about government beginning in fourth grade. They visit the Statehouse. McAuliffe’s statue stands near the entrance, a good starting point for a discussion. It’s the first statue added to the grounds in over a century, and the first woman.

At Concord High School, Kimberly Bleier teaches social studies in a room where McAuliffe once taught. In the film, she says she often reminds herself that “there’s a lot of responsibility there” to ensure that what McAuliffe brought to the school, such as her love of hands-on learning, is still remembered and talked about.

Bleier currently teaches “Street Law,” a general introduction to the legal system that emphasizes criminal and juvenile law. McAuliffe had taught that class, too.

Bleier was a sixth-grader when she watched the space shuttle launch on television. She recalled how devastating it was.

“I don’t want to watch the shuttle blow up again,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday. “I want to watch her. I want to hear her.” Where can I see it?

The 30-minute documentary can be viewed online on the New Hampshire PBS website. Viewers also can stream it on the PBS App.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.