Strafford County commissioners spent a substantial portion of their meeting debating where to locate a replacement nursing home and whether to use adjacent county land for affordable housing.

Speaker 3 urged the board to revisit the county's original nursing-home plan, saying the prior site and master plan were superior and should be exhausted before moving to alternatives. "The original plan was a better plan," Speaker 3 said, adding that permitting delays and loss of ARPA funding had driven earlier decisions.

Speaker 2 described options to pair housing with a nursing facility and suggested using proceeds a private developer would pay for land as offsetting revenue for the nursing-home fund. Speaker 2 said a developer representative had told them a full plan would be submitted in January and that the commission should evaluate that proposal when it arrives.

Commissioners also discussed an Eric Drive site previously identified as easier to permit but noted trade-offs in footprint, permitting timelines and the potential to sell parts of current plan designs for assisted-living use if the county did not build every component.

Why it matters: Commissioners must balance timing, permitting risk and funding availability while deciding whether to prioritize the original plan or move forward with a quicker-to-permit alternative. The decision will affect county capital expenditures, the scale of new housing, and the long-term location of nursing-home services.

Next steps: Speakers said they will invite technical experts and consultants back to brief the commission and evaluate the original site's feasibility before making a final site commitment.