CATCH Neighborhood Housing has been given the go-ahead to bring 42 new apartments to Penacook.
The proposal to build 42 one- to three-bedroom units of affordable housing in six buildings, each one- to two-stories high on 95-97 Village St., was approved Wednesday night by the planning board after the developers agreed to incorporate a berm – a raised bank of land – and a fence with its vegetative buffer to shield the project from abutters.
Caite Foley, CATCH’s vice president of real estate and property management, said Wednesday night that it’s too early to say how many people could live in the apartments, as that won’t be determined until the ratios of one- to three-bedroom units are established. She said CATCH only allows two residents per bedroom in their units.
Penacook residents who have spoken against the project have been mostly concerned about whether the workforce housing project will bring additional children to the school district and affect the tax rate. The village’s tax rate is $5.53 higher than Concord’s rate due to a higher school portion.
About 25% to 50% of the apartments will be available at market rate, Foley said, while the rest will be workforce rental housing, defined by the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority as rental housing affordable to a family of three making 60% of their area’s median income.
Affordable rent is defined by the authority as costing no more than 30% of a person’s income.
But the few residents who spoke Wednesday night were more concerned about their privacy and quality of life.
“We’re going to have teenaged girls swimming in our in-ground pool and all these people moving in with no privacy,” said Sheila Rogers of Lilac Street, whose house abuts the back of the property.
Rogers, who appeared at the meeting with her husband Glenn, was concerned that allowing the project to use a hammerhead turnaround instead of the required cul-de-sac would intrude too much on her family’s space. The hammerhead will push 10 feet into the development’s 50-foot vegetative buffer, and the buildings at the back of the development will be two stories.
And Patrick Peick, of Tower Circle, requested the developers put a fence in to prevent students from the nearby schools from cutting through the development and the neighborhood. He said students might do so after the plot was clear-cut, saying any vegetation CATCH plants as part of its screen will take time to grow to full size.
“It would restore privacy for the neighborhood, not only for us but the CATCH neighborhood,” he said. “They don’t want to be looking at us and we don’t want to be looking at them.”
Planning board member Susanne Smith-Meyers suggested putting one-story buildings at the back of the lot as a way to solve the problem, saying someone in a shorter building wouldn’t have “the same visual access” as someone on a second floor.
But Warrenstreet Architect’s Kyle Barker said the hammerhead pushes the back buildings further away from the buffer and that putting higher buildings near the front of the lot wouldn’t fit in with the neighborhood’s character.
But Foley was receptive to the idea of a berm and additional fencing.
The project cleared a major hurdle in May when the Concord City Council approved a zoning switch from medium residential to general commercial, which allows for multi-family housing.
CATCH has a purchase and sales agreement with Penacook Community Center for the Village Street properties, where the community center was looking to expand for a few years before stepping back. They are also looking to buy an adjacent water tower lot for $75,000. All three parcels of land will be merged into one before final city approval.
The land abuts Woodlawn Cemetery, but a staff report on the project says the city will coordinate for construction to stop when a funeral takes place.
Construction is expected to start later this year.