What's New

The City of Portsmouth announces road closures, parking bans and parking alternatives for Saturday, June 3, 2023, the date of the Portsmouth NH 400 Grand Parade (starting at 11 am), the 97.5 WOKQ Chowder Festival at Prescott Park (11:30 am to 2 pm) and Piscataqua RiverFest at Strawbery Banke Museum (10 am to 4 pm). The City is expecting an influx of thousands of visitors and significant limitations on road access to the locations where these large events are taking place.

The Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) Proposed Budget for all appropriated City funds was distributed to the Mayor and City Council on April 27, 2023. This budget document and accompanying interactive user guide are posted to the City website: portsnh.co/budgets.

On April 12, 2023, the NH Public Utilities Commission (PUC) notified the City of Portsmouth it had approved the Portsmouth Community Power Energy Aggregation Plan which allows the City to move forward on securing less expensive and “greener” electric power for residents and businesses.

Portsmouth Community Power is eligible to launch June 1, 2023. Information letters detailing the benefits – and how to be part of Portsmouth Community Power or to opt out – are being mailed starting April 28.

The Portsmouth City Council has authorized the City Finance Department to offer City taxpayers and Water and Sewer customers the option of paperless billing. Customers may opt-in to this completely voluntary service to receive the next bill electronically via the City’s InvoiceCloud system. With paperless billing, residents and businesses can receive their property tax, water and sewer bills electronically, eliminating the need for paper bills to be mailed.

The City of Portsmouth Planning & Sustainability Department launched an initiative to create a Climate Action Plan for the City in 2022. Earlier this year they selected the partnership of VHB, Resilience Planning & Design, LLC, and the Rockingham Planning Commission to guide the plan.

Thanks to City Councilor Rich Blalock, the City Council and City Manager revived a previously long-standing tradition to host Student Government Day in Portsmouth, on April 19. Twenty Portsmouth High School students volunteered to partner with City Councilors and City management to learn first-hand how municipal government works.

Earlier this year the Portsmouth Arts and Nonprofits Committee formed a subcommittee tasked with creating a new Cultural Plan for the City. The last plan was adopted in 2002 and included in the 2005 Master Plan. The goal now is to complete a new plan as a foundational pillar for the 2035 Master Plan to help ensure that city leaders have a strategic roadmap that will guide support and funding policies in the coming decade.

In April 2022, the Portsmouth City Council voted unanimously to authorize funds for “the first part of an intensive public process to understand what is needed for a modern community police facility.” That process is scheduled to begin with an update of the 2014 programmatic space needs study followed by an evaluation of options for renovating the existing facility and new construction. The new construction option will include evaluating potential sites for a new facility with the intention of bringing forward recommendations.  

The Arbor Day Foundation has again named Portsmouth a Tree City USA and has awarded the Tree Growth Award to the City’s Department of Public Works Parks and Greenery Division. City Arborist Supervisor Max Wiater with the City’s Parks and Greenery Division, led by Corin Hallowell and the Trees & Public Greenery Committee, have helped Portsmouth achieve Tree City USA recognition for over twenty years.

Today the City of Portsmouth filed suit against SoBow Square, LLC, its Development Partner (Developer) in the McIntyre Project. The suit, filed in Rockingham County Superior Court, asked the Court to find that the City fully complied with its obligations under the Settlement Agreement, signed in April of 2022, and to find the Developer committed numerous material breaches of that agreement.