Developers looking to build nearly 1,000 housing units near Penacook are asking the city to put $4.7 million towards road building as part of the first construction phase of the project.

The Monitor Way project — so dubbed because much of the land will be purchased from the parent company of the Concord Monitor — would build just over 700 apartments, 151 of them workforce housing and the others market rate, 71 condos and 174 townhouses. The proposed complex is also set to include roughly 25 shops or restaurants, gathering spaces and trails over the next decade on land between Interstate 93 and the Merrimack River.

To service the development, plans include an approximately 1.5 mile thruway connecting Sewalls Falls Road to Whitney Road at the Merchants Way shopping center off exit 17.

During informal negotiations with city staff, an initial request that the city fund the $16 million construction of the entire new road — which developers said would become public once complete — was turned away, developers said. They have since scaled back their ask: The $4.67 million would go toward the segment of road closest to Whitney Road and service the construction of the townhouses, first-up on the proposed construction schedule.

Still an informal proposal, several things have to happen before Concord City Council will formally review the request, said Councilor Brent Todd, whose ward includes the proposed development. The developer first needs council approval to rezone the land for the project to be viable, Todd said in an interview Wednesday. It is currently unclear when that request will hit the council’s agenda. Culvert repairs on the property also need city sign-off for road construction to be possible.

“There have been references to the fact that this may be a ‘done deal.’ That really is far from the case” Todd said at a community meeting Tuesday night.

Furthermore, the developer has not yet put forward site plans for city approval.

“So lots of other stages, lots of other opportunities for folks to come out and ask questions and have input,” Todd said.

When it comes to the permit and zoning hurdles ahead of the project, “it’s going to be like high school track,” said Deane Navaroli, a partner on the project.

At the meeting Tuesday, project leaders were pressed by residents from surrounding neighborhoods and across the city about the community benefits posed by the project.

The project would put a total of $50.5 million in taxes to city coffers by 2035, an estimate from the developer says. Once the project is complete, they estimated the annual property tax bill would top $7 million. The same land brought in less than $6,000 in city taxes in 2023, according to city records.

“We are going to lower your taxes,” Kevin Lacasse, another presenter and CEO of New England Family Housing, said in a response a question about tax impact.

This assertion was met with skepticism by the audience.

“You’re talking about what the new revenue will generate, but the first thing you did was go to the city and ask that your taxes be used to pay for a road that you’ll be required to put in,” Allan Herschlag, a former city councilor, said. The developer previously asked that the city fund the new road construction through a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district, where property taxes in a specific area can be dedicated for a specific use, usually related to encouraging commercial development. “None of those taxes will go to the city, none of those taxes will go to the school district and none of those taxes will go the county. So how is this gentleman’s taxes going to get lower?”

“It’s an investment — our investment and the city’s investment — and the payoff over time… is substantial,” Navaroli said.

In addition to increased tax revenue, developers argued that the influx of students into local schools would buoy education funding at a time when declining populations mean falling money from the state.

The roughly 1,000 units proposed at Monitor Way would add an additional 150 students to the Penacook elementary and Merrimack Valley schools over the next decade, according to a study presented by the developer, while State Department of Education records show the district has lost 352 students over the last decade.

Concerned about both interstate access and traffic added by motorists trying to bypass southbound weekend traffic, those at the meeting largely favored the addition of a half interchange — a northbound exit and a southbound on-ramp — at Sewalls Falls Road. This was a surprise to project engineer Ed Roberge, who noted that the concept of an exit 16 ½ was previously discarded by the state because of local opposition. He said they’re not currently considering asking for the state to add any exit there.

Under the developer’s phased timeline, construction would begin sometime next year on townhouses, but workforce apartments, set to start construction in 2027, would likely be the first housing to go online.

The project, Lacasse emphasized, is part of a patchwork of planned development bringing badly needed housing to a starved market.

“When I’m looking for an apartment, when you’re looking for an apartment, or your children who want to stay here when they get out of school are looking for an apartment, one out of every 20 homes should be available for them to rent. Right now, it’s one out of every 333 homes that’s available,” Lacasse said. “It’s gonna take this project, the Steeplegate project and probably more to get to a rate where we’re stabilized and comfortable.”