The Bucket is Full. Don’t Let Milford Overflow

You know how a leak works.

One drop hits the bucket. Plink. You ignore it.

Another drop. Plink. It doesn’t seem like a big deal.

But if you turn your back, that bucket fills up. And suddenly, you aren’t just looking at water in a bucket. You’re looking at a flood that ruins your floors. It rots your foundation.

That is exactly what is happening to Milford.

This March, we are being asked to vote on Zoning Amendments that look small on paper. But they are the drops that will finally make our town overflow. This is called incrementalization. It’s the strategy of changing a town’s character slowly, piece by piece. You don’t realize the damage until it’s too late to fix it.

Look at the “Drops” They Want to Add:

• Amendment #1 (Back Lots): Allowing subdivisions behind existing homes on private driveways.
• Amendment #2 (ADUs): Letting “accessory” units expand to 1,100 sq. ft. That’s not an in-law suite; that’s a full-sized second house on a single lot.
• Amendment #3 (Cottage Courts): Squeezing clusters of 12 units into “pods” where they don’t belong.
• Amendment #4 (Downtown Density): The big one. Changing the rules to allow 35 units per acre downtown. That isn’t a “tweak”—that is urbanization.

The Lie About Taxes

We are often told that more development means more tax revenue. This is false.

In New Hampshire, residential growth is usually “Negative Tax Growth.” Why? Because a new development of family homes costs the town far more in services than it pays in taxes.

• More rooftops mean more children in our schools (our biggest expense).
• More driveways mean more traffic on 101 and the Oval.
• More density means more strain on our aging water, sewer, and police forces.

When development happens this fast, your property taxes go up to subsidize their new buildings.

Who Is Driving This? (It’s Not Us)

These mandates aren’t coming from Milford families. State mandates are pushing them down. Regional planners view our town as a statistic on a map. This, of course, is being enabled by Milford’s Planning Board, whose desired role is to protect the community of Milford.

• They draw the zones; we sit in the traffic.
• They hit their quotas; we pay the higher school taxes.
• They move on to the next town; we lose the rural character we moved here for.

Don’t Be the Frog in Boiling Water

If you throw a frog in boiling water, it jumps out. But if you turn the heat up slowly—amendment by amendment—it stays until it’s too late.

The heat is turning up in Milford. The bucket is full.

We can’t afford to let this overflow. We can’t afford the traffic. We can’t afford the tax hikes.

Please, protect our town this March.

Vote NO on Amendments 1, 2, 3, and 4.

#MilfordNH #VoteNo #SaveOurSchools #StopTheOverflow #MilfordFirst #KeepMilfordRural

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