ZBA OKs workforce housing project

The Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) this week set aside a handful of ordinances intended to forestall the development of multi-family housing by granting a special exception and four variances that will enable the conversion the building at 2645 Lakeshore Road (Rte. 11), which last housed the Victorian House restaurant, to be converted into five residential rental units.

Ron Vezina of Moultonborough plans to create five apartments — two one-bedroom, two two-bedroom and one three-bedroom units — within the existing building envelope and footprint on the 2.41-acre lot. Described as "workforce housing apartments," the units will rent for between $600 and $900 per month.

Only one abutter attended the hearing and then only to tell the board of the dangers entering and leaving the property in light of the speeding traffic on Route 11.

Although members of the board did not question the legitimacy of the ordinances, they showed no zeal to strictly enforce them.

Attorney Doug Hill, representing Vezina, began by reminding the board of the state statute requiring municipalities to provide "reasonable and realistic opportunities for the development of workforce housing . . . in a majority, but not necessarily all, of the land area that is zoned to permit residential uses" that becomes effective in January. At the same time, the Legislature included "a balanced supply of housing which is affordable to persons and families of low and moderate income" among the purposes the planning and zoning laws, together with a declaration that "opportunity for development of such housing . . . should not be prohibited or discouraged by use of municipal planning and zoning powers or by unreasonable interpretation of such powers."

Hill described the Gilford ordinance regulating multi-family housing as "restrictive and probably exclusionary." For example, he noted that since the zoning ordinance permits three units per acre, the project was originally designed for seven units. However, the density was reduced to five units to eliminate the need for a fifth variance to exceed the maximum allowable lot coverage. The total ground area occupied by buildings and parking in a multi-family development, he explained, cannot exceed 20-percent of the site, half the area allowed commercial development such as a hotel or theater. "There is a 100-percent coverage penalty for multi-family housing," Hill remarked.

Hill requested four variances, along with the special exception required of all multi-family developments. The first variance would permit the conversion of the building to a multi-family dwelling on a 2.41-acre lot while the ordinance appears to require a minimum lot size of 5-acres. The second would permit the third story of the building to be used for living space while the ordinance restricts multi-family dwellings to two stories. The third would permit the use of the existing overhead utilities and septic system while the ordinance requires underground utilities multi-family buildings and public sewer service for all mutli-family buildings. And, finally, the fourth variance would permit the existing driveways, structures and landscaping to remain within the required 50-foot landscaped buffer.

Hill suggested said that since the third floor of the building had long served as an apartment and qualified as a valid pre-existing, non-conforming use, a variance might not be necessary. After reading the ordinance closely, Chairman Andy Howe concluded that it did not limit multi-family buildings to two stories. The board unanimously agreed, interpreting the ordinance to permit three-story building within the maximum building height of 35 feet and rendering the variance unnecessary.

The ordinance requiring underground utilities and public sewer, Hill claimed, posed the severest hardships. To bring sewer to the property, he said, would require running a four-inch pressure main 2,000 feet along Route 11 to the nearest manhole at Terrace Hill Road, crossing under the highway and installing a pressure pump, all at an estimated cost of $148,000. Likewise, burying the electrical service under Route 11 would about $25,000. Hill explained that the property was served by a septic system already approved by the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services for more capacity than the five units would generate.

The ZBA chose to break the ordinance in two and vote on the sewer and utilities separately, unanimously granting the variance from the public sewer requirement and, with Scott Davis dissenting, approving the variance for the utilities.

The board also unanimously granted the variance for encroachment in the buffer, but with the condition that a portion of an outbuilding in the buffer along Cumberland Road, to the south, would be removed and four parking spaces within the buffer along Route 11 would be relocated.

In granting the special exception, the ZBA, at Davis's insistence, asked the Planning Board to consider requiring that a portion of the property be designated as a recreational area for the use of the tenants and their children.

As the conversion of an existing property rather than a newly constructed development, this project does not fully test the multi-family ordinance against the provisions of the state statute.

Meanwhile, last month The New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority awarded the town an $8,775 grant through its Inclusionary Zoning Implementation Program (IZIP), which assists municipalities create land use regulations that comply with the statute. John Ayer, Director of Planning and Land Use, said that although time was short, he expected the Planning Board would "do everything it could to have an ordinance ready for town meeting in March."

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