Portsmouth City Councilor Deaglan McEachern believes city officials “need to do something more actively than simply say this will be sorted out by the market” if they want to see affordable housing developed in Portsmouth.

“The argument so far hasn’t worked that more development means lower housing prices,” McEachern said. “The market has changed so much because of Covid, and people are realizing that many of them can work from home and live where they want.”

“Our housing market now includes people coming in from Boston and New York,” he added.

The booming housing market “might be good for someone moving here from Somerville, but not so much for someone who grew up here and is trying to stay here,” he said.

He believes the city should consider developing its own affordable housing on city-owned land and/or working with the Portsmouth Housing Authority on projects.

That’s why in March, McEachern asked for a report back from City Manager Karen Conard on city-owned land that could be developed for housing.

In June, McEachern asked city staff to do an updated housing needs assessment for Portsmouth to determine exactly what type of housing the city needs most, whether it’s low income, workforce, or a mix of affordable and market rate.

He hopes to take the “top 10 list of city-owned properties that we could potentially develop” and use the updated housing needs study “to bring together both and say these are the areas where we could build,” McEachern said.

“We would hope to bring in the Portsmouth Housing Authority on the needs assessment and then see if we could do some things that Portsmouth used to do, like build more diverse housing,” he said.

‘Wasn’t a division’

Growing up in Portsmouth, McEachern said, he remembers the city being “economically diverse.”

“I think when people shelter themselves off or are sheltered off by an area of town from others that are living a different life, it makes us all poorer as a community,” McEachern said. “It’s really important to have people living alongside each other.”

“When I grew up, there wasn’t a division; there were some nicer neighborhoods and some tougher ones, but it wasn’t as demarcated as it has the potential to become now,” he added.

If more low-income housing is developed, that development should also include market-rate housing so “it’s not on an island on its own,” he said.

If the City Council considers building housing on cityowned property, they will not have to pay the cost for buying the land, McEachern said.

“The goal here is not to make a profit; it’s to make a community,” McEachern said.

Asked about potential locations for such development, McEachern pointed to the City Hall campus and noted there is already senior housing on site.

“Nothing should be off the table in terms of what we think about,” McEachern said.

“We’re talking about building a new police station and that could be at a new location,” he said. “I think our job on the City Council is to think of those things that might happen down the road.”

Seeing more than 600 people on the Portsmouth Housing Authority’s waiting list for affordable housing shows the market alone can’t fill the housing demand, he said.

“I’m a political realist. I don’t think it’s going to be easy, but we have to have the conversation to see how hard it’s going to be,” he said.