Town Council meeting tonight will focus on the need for affordable housing in Londonderry and the state mandate that all communities plan for it before the new deadline of January 1st 2010.
What is workforce housing?
“Workforce housing” means housing which is intended for sale and which is affordable to a household with an income of no more than 100 percent of the median income for a 4- person household for the metropolitan area or county in which the housing is located as published annually by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“Workforce housing” also means rental housing which is affordable to a household with an income of no more than 60 percent of the median income for a 3-person household for the metropolitan area or county in which the housing is located as published annually by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Housing developments that exclude minor children from more than 20 percent of the units, or in which more than 50 percent of the dwelling units have fewer than two bedrooms, shall not constitute workforce housing.
Workforce Housing offers an array of housing options including rental apartments, condominiums and single family homes. All of these options qualify under the Workforce Housing Law.
What Does This Mean for Londonderry?
Based on the limits for 4-person and 3-person households in New Hampshire’s Workforce Housing Law, the following monthly payments would serve as the maximum limits for workforce housing in the Town of Londonderry:
Intended for Sale; 100% of Median Income; 4 Person Household
IncomeAllowance
Affordable Payments
Intended for Rent; 60% of Median Income; 3 Person Household
IncomeAllowance
Affordable Payments
According to New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, a household making 100% of the median income, or the maximum to meet the standards of workforce housing, may be able to afford a $289,000 home.
Working on the issue well before the General Court took up legislation for workforce housing, Londonderry started a housing task force in May of 2007. Chaired by John Michels this group looked at the state of affordable housing in Londonderry. The conclusions were sent on to the Planning Board and created into an ordinance after 2 1/2 years of staff development, workshops and hearings. On October 14th 2009 the planning board approved and have recommended to the town council adoption of this ordinance unanimously.
This was done with amendments that addressed the following areas
Summary of changes from the May 13, 2009 Public Hearing
- Revised Phasing and Growth Management sections (per recommendations of Town Attorney) to replace “exemptions” with a middle ground approach of new requirements for workforce units. (This addresses the concerns of no growth ordnance management originally brought by the Chairman of the Town Council and School Board)
- Eliminated the Workforce Residential Overlay Section entirely, and removed all parcels to be included in the overlay. (This addressed the concerns of neighborhoods that felt targeted by work force housing.)
- Revised the Inclusionary Housing section to incorporate allowance for multi-family workforce housing by conditional use permit, and incorporating the standards and restrictions for development of multi-family workforce units. (This encourages standalone units while still allowing smaller apartment style living areas. Similar to but not larger than Vista Ridge.)
But what will it look like?
This annotated slide show includes photos of similar projects in the region.
If the slide show is not running here please click this link it will take you to a slideshow in our Londonderry Images Darkroom.
Tonight November 2nd at 7pm the Londonderry Town Council will have the first hearing on adopting the ordinance as presented. The fact that the governing body of the town (in this case the town council) has taken the issue up before January, that deadline has been met. Residents are encouraged to provide input, even if they have done so in the hundreds of hours of workshops, meetings and hearings in the past.
More information on workforce housing in Londonderry
Read other stories regarding Workforce Housing
Up to 196 will have to wait for homes on Stonehenge Road
State Mandates Workforce housing in Londonderry
Planning Board, a Place to Live and a place to Work
A lighter look at workforce housing
Read “Hysteria Lane” by Jim Loiselle
Useful links to town documents
- Workforce Housing Informational Booklet
- Workforce Hosing Zoning Ordinance Amendments Recommended to Town Council on October 14, 2009
The entire text of RSA 674:58-61
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This is a real turning point for our town. If this passes we’re going to see more and more apartment style buildings and rentals in the future. Taxes will go up as the renters suck the town’s services dry and the quality of our neighbors change. We might as well change those new signs to read “Welcome to Lawrence”
If you don’t show up tonight, you’ll have nobody to blame but yourself.
Am I the only one who can’t get the slideshow to work?
How have other towns (e.g., Windham, Bedford, Amherst, Rye) complied? I have yet to read a newspaper article about other towns wrestling with this issue to the same degree that Londonderry is; maybe I’m just oblivious to what is going on in those towns, but somehow it feels like we are making this more difficult than it needs to be.
(Please note that I am no relation to “a resident” — my name is spelled with an upper-case A and an upper-case R — nor do I endorse his views.)
I will put a direct link in, you may not have java enabled. It is in our darkroom at http://www.LondonderryImages.com
I understand they will present tonight what other towns are doing, we will report on that after the meeting.
Did they vote?
We covered in in Breaking News Monday Night.
Based on the conversations of the council the next meeting will not be the vote. It would be impossible to forecast the date of the vote based on the banter.
My mistake. I read “we will report on that after the meeting” to mean a follow up story was going to be published. Unless the ‘banter’ of the meeting did not favor the hoped end result of the editor?
The key item to report on in bold.
Oddly the Town Council never did cover “What other towns were doing” in the last (Final) Planning Board Meeting on this issue a person testified that “No other town in the region is doing this or plans to do this (implement the state mandate for workforce housing.)”
Could be it “did not favor the hoped end result of that editor.” we just try to present the facts. You are free to comment and ad your point of view to any story. This is of course the fact, it has been implemented by other towns and is on the agenda in many others. The information is in the packet provided to the TC that was not available to others until that night.
We do publish all our stories on our timetable and as our authors are able. As they say in Londonderry, “Business is Good. Life is Better!” We spend a lot of time on business that pays the bills and much more time on life.
A slight clarification – “The information is in the packet provided to the TC that was not available to others until that night.”
The information packets that the Town Council receives are generally distributed to Council members several days prior to the meeting, usually the Thursday or Friday before a meeting. The document is emailed to the Council in PDF format and is covered under RSA 91A. So anyone who would like a copy need only ask the Town Manager. If you’re interested in a particular topic the PDF definitely helps to “follow along” during a meeting.
A slight clarification – “The information is in the packet provided to the TC that was not available to others until that night.”
The information packets that the Town Council receives are generally distributed to Council members several days prior to the meeting, usually the Thursday or Friday before a meeting. The document is emailed to the Council in PDF format and is covered under RSA 91A. So anyone who would like a copy need only ask the Town Manager. If you’re interested in a particular topic the PDF definitely helps to “follow along” during a meeting.