Petra Huda

Why I’m Running

My top priority is restoring fiscal responsibility to protect affordability in Portsmouth. We can’t talk about affordable housing while making the city itself unaffordable. Over the last 3½ years, city spending has grown by $23.5 million, and the budget just hit $150 million. That kind of unchecked budget growth drives up property taxes and rents, making it harder for families, seniors, and workers to stay here—or for new residents to move here.

My solution is restoring fiscal responsibility. Oversight—not micromanagement—is what’s missing. Oversight is a core responsibility of elected officials: carefully reviewing budgets, asking tough but necessary questions, identifying efficiencies, and ensuring that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely, efficiently, and transparently.

During my prior term, I fought for and delivered the lowest budget increases in a decade by challenging unnecessary spending and demanding efficiency. I’ll do the same again. We don’t need to cut essential services, but we do need to rein in yearly spending growth, prioritize core needs, and stop passing unnecessary costs onto residents. Every tax dollar should be justified.

This Council says affordable housing is its top priority, yet its budgeting practices are directly undermining affordability. Even when I presented a list of possible efficiencies and new revenue sources during the FY2026 budget hearings, (see City Council meeting 5.19.25) my questions went unanswered.

Affordability isn’t just about housing—it’s about the overall cost of living. We’ve already changed zoning, loosened ADU rules, and eliminated parking requirements, yet 96% of new units are still market-rate. Developers continue to choose profits over people. True affordability means two things: protecting residents by controlling budgets and taxes, and requiring accountability from developers to actually deliver affordable units—not just promise them.