Mayor Byron Champlin took a moment away from talking about housing development in Concord to ask a favor of business leaders in the room.

Champlin said he was troubled by “the recent erosion of civil public discourse and trust in our community” around local issues.

“Invective conspiracy theories and reducing people to stereotypes is a cancer that cannot be allowed to metastasize,” he said during his State of the City address to the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce Thursday morning. “I call on you in this room and outside in the broader community to work with me to raise the level of public discourse, push back against unfounded allegations, elevate the good things that we do in Concord every day.”

After the event, Champlin declined to be more specific about what he was referencing. “I think anyone who’s been paying attention to online chatter… knows what I’m talking about,” he said.

His comments came a week after the city dismissed an ethics complaint related to the City Council’s upcoming decision on whether build a new clubhouse at Beaver Meadow Golf Course for $8 million. Notably, it was the fifth ethics complaint filed in the last year after twelve years without a single one.

The mayor isn’t the only local leader voicing this concern: members of the Concord School Board have expressed similar distress at the personal tone of criticism levied against them, especially over the proposal for a new middle school. Superintendent Kathleen Murphy rose at the meeting Thursday morning to underscore Champlin’s comments.

“It’s just not the Concord that I’ve lived in for 40 years,” Champlin said afterward. He believes the anger is a byproduct of polarization at the state and national level and can be resolved through frank but neighborly discourse. “I think we really care about each other, and I think we can hash out our differences and our challenges by sitting down around the table, by talking to each other.”

Champlin couldn’t point to any new literal or metaphorical opportunities for people to come sit down at the table with local leaders, besides public input sessions next year as part of developing the city’s master plan.

“I’d be looking for ways to promote and to participate in community conversations that help us overcome these barriers,” he said.

The main topic of the day, though, was housing.

While city leaders often cite Concord as a regional leader when it comes to addressing the housing crisis, it remains a major issue and a priority for the mayor.

“The more units we create, the more opportunities we get for our young people to live and stay and work here, and the more opportunities we give to homeless service providers to move people out of homelessness and into housing,” Champlin said.

Concord gained just 574 units between 2010 and 2022, a 3% increase, per stats presented by Champlin. Then, from 2019 to 2024, the median home price rose 70% and median rent climbed nearly 30%.

Champlin and City Manager Tom Aspell used their remarks as a rundown of housing projects in-process or completed in the last year, such as affordable senior housing at Penacook Landing and at the Railyards, as well as market-rate units completed at Tanager Circle along Fisherville Road and the Isabella Apartments on Main Street.

If all of the 2,352 units in the development pipeline for Concord are completed and occupied by 2030, the mayor noted, Concord is on track to meet a supply goal set by the Central New Hampshire Regional Planning Commission in 2023 for 2,223 new units in the city by 2030. Concord was also one of 18 communities named a Housing Champion by the state, part of an incentive program to award grants to municipalities that ready themselves for development. The city is also responsible for a proportionally higher number of affordable units in the region compared to its population.

“Concord is doing its ‘fair share,’” Champlin said.

Other data points in the presentation were less promising.

The second half of construction at the Railyard Apartments remains in limbo. Dakota Partners is hoping another developer will take the reins after high interest rates and building costs forced them to stop short. The Railyards second phase would bring 92 units, or roughly 1 in 5 of the 505 rent-assisted apartments anticipated in Concord between 2020 and 2026.

Just two projects make up the 985 units of housing awaiting city approvals. The largest housing proposal in the city — one for 600 units at the Steeplegate Mall — has been slowed to a crawl over the last year by multiple lawsuits from tenants and neighbors. Last January, builders hoped to complete it by the fall of 2026. It’s yet to get final city sign-offs.

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.