The state’s Land and Community Heritage Investment Program, or LCHIP, has funded 23 projects across the state. But this could be the last year the program exists to help protect everything from historic buildings, to forests, to farms.
The LCHIP managers say about $1 million in state money has leveraged about $ 13 million in projects. Executive Director Dijit Taylor says one unusual site involves a farm on the state’s western border.
“It includes two islands in the Connecticut River, one of which has the potential to be a campsite for people canoeing down the river.”
Other projects that made it through the selection process are the restoration of the Colonial theatre in downtown Laconia, a mile of river frontage in Wakefield, and preservation of a working forest in Goffstown.
LCHIP claims this work will generate over 120 jobs and $3.7 million in wages.
This is the last year LCHIP has funding. State budget writers eliminated its money for the next two years. Taylor says board members are looking for ways to keep the program going and in 2013, they will go back and ask lawmakers to reconsider.
