EDAC urges outreach on heritage‑neighborhood plan and RSA 79‑E incentives

Jesse Brown, who proposed a village heritage‑neighborhood, told the committee he has seen little local use of RSA 79‑E and wants better education for property owners on how the program works. "A heritage neighborhood is simply just giving the neighbors the opportunity to decide what they like to see in their neighborhood," he said, arguing the approach is locally driven, not a strict historic‑district overlay.

Members focused on outreach and education as the immediate next step. Grant (staff) suggested inviting the state BEA office to explain the 79‑E rules and sending a targeted mailing or holding a neighborhood meeting to reach Merrimack Street and adjacent village streets. Several members said the program’s rehabilitation threshold—widely cited at $75,000 or 15% of pre‑rehab value—discourages small property owners from applying. "If we at minimum, we could do that. I think that would be a huge improvement, just to drop that threshold," Jesse said.

Committee members also discussed separating the town‑level heritage‑neighborhood effort from 79‑E work: one track to update the master plan and shrink the defined village boundary, and a parallel outreach effort by EDAC to publicize the tax incentive. The group agreed to draft outreach materials, identify eligible properties within the 79‑E zone and survey residents before proposing regulatory changes to planning or the Heritage Commission.

The committee set homework to produce a one‑page fact sheet and plan a meeting for village residents; no regulatory change or council action was taken at this meeting.