SOMERSWORTH Despite the economic pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city granted more building permits in 2020 than any previous year in its history, according to city staff.
After years of watching people and developers get priced out of cities like Portsmouth and Dover, but at the same time seeing those folks go around Somersworth to Rochester and elsewhere, city employees and officials see this as a sign that growth and change are taking root in the Hilltop City. And quickly.
“We’ve never had building permits of this magnitude. It’s impossible,” longtime Code Enforcement Officer Tim Metivier said last week in the middle of a busy day of inspections. “Probably 10 of the 12 months (last year), we kept breaking records. Like, ‘Wow, we processed this many?’ and I’d look back in my data and see we’ve never done this many. And then the same would be true the next month.”