LACLT to convert Mechanic Street School to housing

The Laconia Area Community Land Trust (LACLT) has submitted a proposal to the Planning Department to convert the former Mechanic Street School into six apartments. The school sits on a 1.054-acre parcel overlooking Lakeport at the corner of Mechanic Street and Hawthorne Street.

The first step will be to apply to Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) for a special exception. The school is in a "residential general" zone where multi-family housing requires a such a move. The ZBA is scheduled to consider the request when its meets on January 18.

The project would be identical to the LACLT's conversion of the Batchelder Street School in Ward 5, which was built to exactly the same design at about the same time. Linda Harvey, executive director of the LACLT, said yesterday that much of the design work from the Batchelder Street School project can be applied at Mechanic Street, which will significantly reduce the cost of the conversion.

She projected the cost of the project at $1.16 million, $1 million of it in the form of a loan guaranteed by the Rural Development Corporation of the United States Department of Agriculture, which encourages the development of multi-family housing in rural areas. The balance of the funding will be provided by a Community Development Block Grant and a grant from the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority.

The plan calls for three units on the ground floor and three units on the second floor of the two and half story building. Each floor would house two one-bedroom units and one two-bedroom unit. The two-bedroom unit on the first floor would be handicapped-accessible and the one-bedroom units would both be handicapped adaptable. Nine parking spaces, two reserved for handicapped drivers, will be provided at the rear of the building.

"Most of the units are best suited for single people," Harvey said. "The two bedroom apartments would serve a small family, but we don't anticipate housing many children in the building."

The project would fulfill a goal of the city's Master Plan, which recommended that the city consider acquiring the former Mechanic Street School in East Lakeport as a possible site for subsidized housing." The building is owned by the Gilbert family and managed by David Gilbert of Gilbert Apartments.

Last July the LACLT submitted a similar plan for the site to the Planning Board, which included the construction of two single family homes on the property along with the conversion of the school. Harvey said that the plan was withdrawn when it was discovered that it failed to comply with the policies of one of the major funding sources. She also observed that several abutters expressed misgivings about the intensive use of the site.