Rochester Econ Dev chief picked as chair of New Hampshire Housing Commission

Mike Scala (Courtesy photo)

ROCHESTER - The city's economic development director has been appointed by Gov. Kelly Ayotte to be the Chairman of the Board of Directors for New Hampshire Housing.

Mike Scala has served as Rochester's director of economic development since June 2019, and most recently has focused on the city's ongoing effort to provide more government-funded affordable housing in the Lilac City with mixed results.

Rochester Econ Dev. chief Mike Scala, left, and Rochester Mayor Paul Callaghan watch as the Brickyard housing complex goes up in smoke at the Gonic School in 2022 (Rochester Voice file photo)

In 2022 he led a failed effort to aid Catholic Charities in developing a 150-unit affordable housing complex in the former Brickyard in Gonic. Gonicians roundly criticized the project saying it would destroy the fabric of their village, and it died at a stormy meeting at the Gonic School that September.

In 2024 he was successful, however, in getting a separate Catholic Charities affordable housing project across the finish line, this one at the former DPW site on Old Dover Road.

Scala was widely criticized in 2022 by readers of The Rochester Voice for mocking the digital daily after it demanded Right to Know documents regarding the lease details of a plot of land on Hanson Street next to Porter's Pub on which the city hoped to develop a downtown green space.

After agreeing to release the documents to The Rochester Voice, Scala noted in an email to Rochester Attr. Terence O'Neil, "I hope his readership of five likes this."

A few minutes after The Rochester Voice received the forwarded email from O'Rourke, he emailed The Voice to request that the email be "returned."

Coincidentally, The Rochester Voice had been named 2021 Rochester Business of the Year by the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce just months earlier.

For the record, The Rochester Voice has a readership of more than $120,000.

New Hampshire Housing is a self-supporting public corporation established by statute in 1981 that promotes, finances, and supports housing solutions for the people of New Hampshire, operating rental and homeownership programs to assist low- and moderate-income residents in obtaining affordable housing, according to a statement from the city released today.

New Hampshire Housing has helped more than 55,000 families purchase homes and financed the creation of more than 16,000 multifamily housing units, officials note.

To learn more about New Hampshire Housing, visit www.nhhfa.org.