Bryce Kaw-uh speaks on the importance of housing-friendly additions to the city’s zoning ordinance. (Photo by Andrew Sylvia, Manchester Ink Link)
Affordable housing advocates gathered outside of Manchester City Hall on Tuesday morning to emphasize the inclusion of housing-friendly additions to the upcoming proposed new city zoning ordinance code.
Organized by Manchester Neighbors Welcome, speakers expressed the need for Manchester residents to share their views with the Zoning Ordinance Rewrite Steering Committee to focus on mixed-use neighborhoods, less red tape for accessory dwelling units, holding firm on the proposed reduced minimum mandatory lot sizes included within initial versions of the rewrite and the abolition of mandatory parking minimums.
Speakers at the event felt that these concepts would help lower rent costs for Manchester residents and help attract and retain young professionals and young families to the city, as well as providing the same standard of living for all in the city.
“Home ownership is out of reach for far too many working families and at the same time, the rent keeps going up,” said Manchester Planning Board Chair Bryce Kaw-uh, who was speaking on his own behalf at the event. “We continue to see the impact of this in our families, in our friend groups, and in our community at large, with many of our neighbors struggling to make ends meet and some even living on the streets.”
“Not many know that your life expectancy is greater the further away you travel from the inside of our city,” said Jessica Margeson, a member of the Manchester Housing Commission. “Out at Crystal Lake, (life expectancy) is two years longer. Why can’t everyone in the city experience this?”
At the zoning ordinance neighborhood discussions held last year, there was a wide variety of viewpoints on ideas such as Mixed-Use Zoning, or parcels of land that blend residential and non-residential uses. According to a report on the meetings gathered by the University of New Hampshire Research Center, support for Mixed-Use was high in more urban areas of the city such as Ward 3 (61%), Ward 5 (40%) and Ward 11 (44%) and lower in more suburban areas like Ward 6 (8%), Ward 8 (9%) and Ward 9 (8%).
Kaw-uh said that while change may be concerning to some, residents in less urban areas of the city should embrace proposals seeking more density in parts of the city that actively want that for their neighborhoods.
“The housing crisis is something that impacts the entire community and every part of the city needs to do its fair share. What that fair share is may be different for Ward 6 or 8 compared to downtown areas like Ward 3. I think there’s a lot more capacity for housing downtown,” he said. “Folks who are living on the outskirts of the city should actually support the rezoning process because the bulk of new development will occur outside of their neighborhoods in the urban core, where it makes the most sense.”
“We don’t need skyscrapers in Ward 6 and we don’t need to limit the housing options downtown,” he added.
Regarding the elimination of mandatory parking minimums, something other municipalities across the country are considering to address housing shortages.
Kaw-uh said that developers would still likely include parking in their building proposals even without minimums if they felt that it was needed to make their buildings financially viable.
A finalized version of the proposed zoning rewrite is expected to come before the Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen this summer. More information on the process can be found at manchesternh.gov/landusecode
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