Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Housing topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Resident urges Portsmouth City Council to adopt a formal housing action plan
Summary
Jerry Duffy, a Portsmouth resident, told the council the city lacks a single accountable housing action plan and urged the council to adopt a framework with targets, responsibilities and timelines to accelerate permanently affordable housing production.
Jerry Duffy, a Portsmouth resident, told the City Council that Portsmouth faces a housing crisis and lacks “a single accountable framework” to set targets, assign responsibility and measure progress.
Duffy, who said he lives at 428 Pleasant Street, argued that housing policy in Portsmouth is managed through a “patchwork of boards, committees and case‑by‑case decisions” and recommended a housing action plan that would set explicit outcomes the city could track. He cited a vetted waiting list of more than 400 households for a permanently affordable project as evidence that demand outpaces production.
The council did not take formal action on the request during the meeting. Mayor Degel McCacran thanked Duffy and invited the council to consider how retreat goals and upcoming budget priorities might be used to address the governance gaps Duffy described.
Why it matters: Duffy framed the request as a governance issue, not a disagreement over values — asking the council to create near‑term accountability (who does what, by when, and how success is measured) rather than rely solely on longer‑range master‑planning documents.
