Poorly planned proposal needs to be vetted, not rushed through willy nilly

Schematic of the front of the proposed rest home at the County Farm. (Courtesy)

To the editor:

Last week, and in the weeks preceding, the Strafford County Commissioners made their pitch for a new nursing home to the county delegation and city councils. The "three legged stool" they proposed consists of a new 215 bed 170 million dollar nursing home that would rival the very best of private homes in the state. Its amenities include a voluminous glass atrium, a movie theater, a beauty salon, and among other things, a pub. The other two legs include renovating the existing 50-year-old nursing home into "transitional housing" for the homeless and needy along with an apparently arbitrary and unsubstantiated (no documentation supporting the need was shown) call for 750 new "obtainable" housing units in Dover, Rochester, and Somersworth.

The jury is still out on exactly what exactly obtainable housing is. I prefer the word affordable. (The real problem) Anyone that's paying attention knows there's a lack of housing and especially affordable housing. There's was literally no discussion of how the number was arrived at.

In any case, not one word was spoken about funding for the second or third leg leaving me wondering how they can call it it a three legged stool? Then there's the solar farm. (Do we have a fourth leg?) They're calling for a 75 acre solar farm generating revenues of $1.7 million to be used to offset part of the bonded debt each year. A quick internet search of solar farm construction cost reveals about $400,000 an acre or $30,000,000. I wonder who's paying for that? They never said. In fact it wasn't even brought up. So how is this a three legged stool? It sounds to me like a one legged stool waiting for the wood for the other two (three?) legs to be shaped.

The delegation should do its due diligence, vet this project properly, make sure the funding is in place, make sure this is workable, come up with a more reasonable design, do a thorough cost analysis on the viability of a solar farm, fully investigate the cost of the transitional housing scheme, and do an actual analysis of the affordable housing shortage including, (since they all get tax breaks offset by the rest of us) the number of existing tax subsidized housing units in each town.

This was a rushed, poorly planned proposal in an attempt to secure $25 million dollars of state/federal aid. This isn't how we should do business.

- Steve Beaudoin

Rochester