What is a TIF?
In the most basic terms, a Tax Increment Financing district is a promise about growth.
Under New Hampshire law, a town can draw a boundary around a defined area and record its current assessed value — the “baseline.” Property taxes generated from that baseline continue to support the town’s normal operating budget. But if development occurs and property values rise, the taxes generated from that increase — the increment — are captured into a separate fund. That money can only be used to pay for infrastructure improvements inside the district or to repay bonds issued for those improvements.
No one inside the district pays a higher tax rate. The mechanism simply redirects the growth in taxes, betting that infrastructure will stimulate enough new value to pay for itself.
Hooksett has made that bet before.
The First Bet: Exit 10, 1999–2012
In the late 1990s, Exit 10 did not resemble the commercial corridor drivers know today. The area was largely underdeveloped, including a gravel pit and scattered parcels. Town leaders were grappling with rapid residential growth and the fiscal imbalance that often follows it. More homes meant more demand for schools and services. The solution many communities pursue — and Hooksett chose — was to grow the commercial tax base.
The town created the Exit 10 TIF district in 1999. In 2001, voters approved $2.6 million in bonding to fund road improvements: widening Route 3A, improving the I-93 interchange, installing traffic signals, and upgrading intersections. The bond would be paid back using the increment generated by new commercial development in the district.
It took roughly 13 years from the district’s establishment to full bond repayment. But during that time, the transformation was dramatic.
Target opened in 2003. Kohl’s, Home Depot, BJ’s, and other retailers followed. Walmart and Market Basket anchored the corridor. What had been largely undeveloped land became Hooksett’s largest planned commercial development in history.
The financial impact was significant. The district’s baseline assessed value in 1999 was just under $3 million. By 2012, assessed value exceeded $57 million. Once the bond was retired, more than $1 million annually in tax revenue flowed into the town’s general fund from that corridor — revenue helping fund municipal services that otherwise would have been borne more heavily by residential taxpayers.
Few dispute that the first Exit 10 TIF worked. It paid for its own infrastructure. It generated sustained commercial tax growth. And over time, property values in the corridor continued to rise beyond 2012, further strengthening the tax base.
The conditions that made it work were clear: a large amount of developable land and strong retail demand in the early 2000s.
Today, voters are being asked to consider a second phase under very different circumstances.
The second exit 10 TIF:
Utilities, not roads
In 2017, Hooksett established a new TIF district covering the Exit 10 corridor. This time, the focus was not road access but water and sewer infrastructure.
Much of the retail corridor operates on private septic systems. Town officials have argued that extending public sewer would protect environmental health, reduce reliance on aging systems, and unlock redevelopment potential in underutilized parcels.
The current warrant article asks voters to authorize up to $12 million in infrastructure spending within the Exit 10 TIF district. Approximately $860,000 has been accumulated in the TIF district since 2017.
Approximately $2 million is being allocated through sewer commission monies beyond the $860,000 allocated from the TIF district businesss since 2017.
If this warrant article passes, the town would only be able to use monies that have been set aside from the businesses in the TIF not from residential property owners. This means that by voting YES on this warrant article there will not be a tax increase to the residential property owner in town. Voting YES would however allow the town to start using the $860,000 in the fund to go towards infrastructure projects at exit 10.
Voting YES would also mean that the town can bond 12.5 million dollars for the full scope of the project and the town would then be obligated to pay that bond over time through the proposed new developments in this district at exit 10 and 11. The first TIF bond took 13 years to pay off for road expansions off the exit.
The Town administrator expects for this project to take approximately 15-20 years to be fully paid off. That is 15-20 years that increased tax revenue from the businesses in the TIF district (which has been expanded to the industrial/commercial areas on the east side of the river) won’t be able to go toward the general fund to offset the town and school services and operating budgets. This strategy is certainly long term and can definitely provide a significant return on investment to the taxpayers once complete as proven in 2012. At this time we just don’t know what the potential increase in revenue could be.
By voting NO, this would mean that the town cannot use the funds in the TIF to start the infrastructure project at exit 10 and a bond would not be financed. The town council would have the right to review this project and discuss further options. Some options could be to get more information on some questions the public may have regarding the return on investment, current assessed value baselines for undeveloped properties in the district, number of undeveloped properties suitable for development in the district etc. and then educate the public more on these types of questions so that the voters might be more well informed and may pass the bond.
Another option (one that is less favorable) is that the Town Council could vote to dissolve the district which would only approximately provide a maximum of $100 back to the taxpayers from the TIF district revenue since 2017 on there tax bill for a $500,000 valued home in town. That increment has grown in part due to developments such as Old Dominion on Technology Drive and Harley-Davidson’s move into the former Regal cinema site. In 2022, the Town Council expanded the district to include certain east-of-the-river properties — including the Marmon facility and parcels served by the Martin’s Ferry pump station — specifically to increase the district’s revenue stream and borrowing capacity.
Town officials have described the expansion as a way to add financial momentum to the project. By capturing additional increment from the east side, the district would have more funds available to support sewer expansion on the west side and retire bonds more quickly.
But momentum on paper is different from visible construction cranes.
Beyond Old Dominion committing to building here in Hooksett on Technology Drive, and Harley Davidson taking over the former Regal Cinemas next door, no major new commercial development wave has occurred in the corridor since the early 2000s. That reality fuels the questions many residents are now asking: Are water and sewer the missing catalysts? Or is the corridor largely built out already?
How much undeveloped or underutilized land actually remains inside the district? What are the baseline assessed values of those parcels today, and what could they realistically become? Are there developers prepared to build once utilities are in place, or is this primarily infrastructure for existing large retailers currently operating on septic systems?
The first TIF succeeded because development followed quickly and substantially. The second TIF’s financial success will depend on whether new value is created above today’s baseline.
Those projections — how much new assessed value could be generated and over what timeframe — have not yet been publicly detailed in the same comprehensive fashion as the 1999 planning documents.
Exit 11: A parallel bet
on infrastructure
The story does not end at Exit 10.
In 2022, Hooksett created another TIF district at Exit 11, centered around the Granite Woods property and surrounding land. The objective there was clear: install public water and sewer infrastructure to stimulate development in an area that previously lacked it.
Infrastructure at Exit 11 has largely been completed. Public water is in place. The town has described potential tenants being in discussions. But as of now, development revenue from that district has not yet materialized at scale.
Exit 11 serves as a real-time example of the TIF model in its early phase. Infrastructure first. Development later. Increment after that.
Supporters see it as laying the groundwork for future tax growth. Skeptics note that until development occurs, the increment needed to justify the investment remains theoretical.
The Core Question
The first Exit 10 TIF began with a largely empty landscape and resulted in a fully built commercial corridor that paid off its bond in 13 years and now contributes millions of dollars annually to municipal services.
The second Exit 10 TIF begins with an already developed retail corridor and seeks to add utilities. Its success will depend not on transforming a gravel pit into a shopping center, but on whether meaningful additional value can still be created in that space.
The Exit 11 TIF represents yet another long-term bet: that infrastructure will precede growth and that growth will follow.
For voters, the question is not whether TIFs can work. Hooksett has demonstrated that they can.
The question is whether the conditions that fueled the first success exist today — enough developable land, enough market demand, enough projected value growth — to justify authorizing another substantial round of infrastructure investment.
The mechanism is familiar. The landscape is different.
The decision now rests with the voters.
