With a new master plan update set to begin in the fall, short-term zoning reforms underway and an uptick in housing proposals, Concord will fill its vacant city planner chair in June.
Kellie Caron, currently the deputy town manager and director of economic development in Londonderry, will start in the capital city on June 15. In Londonderry, she oversaw a master plan update and “coordinated several major projects” since joining as a planner in 2022, according to a city announcement, priming her well for the current moment in Concord.
Londonderry has been one of the fastest growing towns in the state over the last decade, particularly through expansive suburban residential development. The town permitted nearly 400 units of new housing in 2024, according to state data, the second-highest total in the state and more than double Concord’s total.
“Her references are outstanding, her experience with New Hampshire planning and land use is very strong, she’s got good master plan experience,” said Deputy City Manager Matt Walsh. “I’m thrilled that she’s going to be joining us.”
Caron also previously spent time as a planner in Merrimack, Milford, Epsom and with the state of New Hampshire.
In the city’s announcement, Caron said she was excited to join Concord and work on the “important initiatives ahead.”
“I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the city’s continued success,” she added.
Concord has been without a city planner since the October departure of Anne Marie Skinner, who was deeply critical of the pace of reform, as well as Walsh and City Hall’s approach to development as a whole.
Caron also has a connection to City Hall – Assistant Director of Community Development Tim Thompson oversaw community development in Merrimack when Caron came on as assistant planner. Thompson also has professional roots in Londonderry, spending more than eleven years as its town planner beginning in 2000. Thompson has taken on many of the planner’s responsibilities during the eight-month vacancy.
Walsh also announced Wednesday night that Concord has selected a consultant to guide its master plan overhaul.
The consultant, Boston-based Utile, has done planning and zoning work across southern New Hampshire and Massachusetts, including master plans in Salem, Nashua and, currently, Portsmouth, as well as in larger cities in northern New England like Burlington, Vermont, and Portland, Maine.
Public participation in the master plan update will ramp up at the end of the summer, Walsh said, and the plan rewrite itself will wrap up by the winter or spring of 2028.
The awarded contract, to Utile and partnering firms, totals the full $400,000 allocated by the city council for that purpose, Walsh said.
