Harrison Kanzler, executive director of AHEAD outlined tools that a community can use to encourage more affordable housing at the MWV Housing Coalition’s affordable housing charrette reveal session, held at Ledge Brewing in Intervale May 12. (Courtesy photo)
Though the regulatory process remains expensive and the cost of building materials high, changes in Conway zoning in recent years have helped make affordable housing more possible.
That was the upshot of the Mount Washington Valley Housing Coalition’s recent housing charrette, with the reveal of the hypothetical exercise held Monday, May 12 at Ledge Brewing in Intervale and attended by about 30 people.
“My takeaway was that zoning (in Conway) doesn’t seem to be getting in the way of building an affordable development — it’s the cost of construction, along with the cost of the administrative side of the building process,” said Josh Brustin, owner of Pinkham Real Estate, who is chair of the MWV Housing Coalition.
He added that, as state Rep. David Paige (D-Conway) and Harrison Kanzler, executive director of the non-profit AHEAD (Affordable Housing, Education and Development), pointed out in their remarks at Monday’s session, there are a number of different tools that communities such as Conway can explore to further improve local housing opportunities.
“If we can get state legislation to let resort towns such as Conway add a local tax in addition to the Rooms and Meals Tax to go toward a local housing fund to offset expenses, that would help,” said Brustin.
“The town of Conway could start a housing trust that would potentially allow you to collect a fee from a developer if they were not going to build affordable housing as part of their project, which could go to an affordable housing fund,” added Brustin.
“Or,” he said, “we could form a community land trust, which we are looking at right now. That would sort of be like a land preservation trust that could go to housing. That would be a nonprofit that would acquire the land and cut out the 8% to 9% profit that a developer needs. And it may require a community effort where everyone — engineers, architects, Realtors — lowers their commissions to share expenses. We are closer to that than we have ever seen. We need to be vigilant, and we need to all work together to make this happen.”
Monday’s reveal session followed a public listening session held at the same location May 6, and attended by about 35 people, and a design work session for planning professionals, builders, engineers, and building and landscape architects held at the Eastern Slope Inn May 7.
The design team included Brustin, Josh McAllister of HEB Engineers; Michael E. Couture, architect; Robert White, RW Landscape Architecture; Liz Lahti, civil engineer, HEB Engineers; Harrison Kanzler, executive director for AHEAD of Littleton; Alex Loth, project manager, Minco Development; Nick Aceto, planner, Aceto Kimball Landscape Architecture; Conway Town Planner Ryan O’Connor; Brittany Hodge, mortgage loan officer, Meredith Village Savings Bank; Evelyn Whelton, VP, residential sales manager New Hampshire and Maine for M&T Bank; and Brandon Swartz, general manager, Attitash and Wildcat Mountain and MWVHC board member.
The team worked on a hypothetical subdivision on a 12-acre, two-parcel property located north of MaineHealth Memorial Hospital in North Conway.
The larger, commercially zoned parcel measures 10.5 acres and is owned by the state Department of Transportation. It is currently listed by Greydon Turner of Pinkham Real Estate for $1.8 million.
The smaller, residential/agriculturally zoned 2.8-acre lot is owned by NH Housing Finance Authority and is under contract to be sold for $325,000 to Ryan Jean of North Conway, who is planning to build a dozen affordable, single-family homes.
Design team members noted in their PowerPoint presentation at Monday’s reveal session that they moved away from using a suburban model for the layout of the two parcels, opting instead for a “neighborhood model” that “transforms a subdivision into a walkable neighborhood that combines open space and neighborhood development.”
The design team determined that a hypothetical mix of 117 units could be built on the 12 acres, at a range of $140,000 for a studio deed-restricted condo to $695,000 for a four-bedroom, 3.5-bath, market-rate townhome.
They said more units could be built to increase a developer’s return but agreed that 117 was the right number for their design of mixed neighborhood units, which include:
- 74 condo-style units, ranging from $140,000 to $350,000
- 28 townhome/market-rate units, priced at $595,000 to $695,000
- 15 single-family homes, priced at $280,000 to $350,000
Sixty-one percent would be sold as “affordable,” according to MWVHC Executive Director Sara Butterfield.
They would be affordable for the median household income earners — the median household income in Carroll County is $106,200 annually, so 61% of the homes in this development would be affordable to the median-income households for Carroll County.
“When you say ‘Affordable,’ with a capital A, that means that the household is spending no more than 30% of their income on housing under HUD guidelines,” Butterfield said.
During Monday’s presentation, landscape architect Aceto, of Aceto Kimball Landscape Architecture of Jackson, described how the design team chose to incorporate a gully that divides the two parcels as a greenway that could connect with town-owned Whitaker Woods.
Aceto showed how the sidewalk along the north side of Route 16 could be extended to the proposed conceptual housing subdivision from its current terminus at Memorial Hospital as a way to connect it to North Conway Village.
Design team member and commercial lender Perry of Union Bank, in a follow-up interview, discussed her comments at the charrette reveal, in which she said “it would be a doable project,” noting, “Costs are certainly rising but it is a viable project, and it is something that could be financed with the right community-minded developer and investors.”
“It would take a significant investment and equity, and the return would be small — 3% to 4% versus 8%. But,” said Perry, “if someone was passionate about building affordable housing, it could work.”
Whelton, longtime MWVHC board member, was the co-presenter at Monday’s reveal session along with Butterfield. “I first want to really congratulate the town and voters of Conway for undertaking all of these several zoning changes in recent years,” said Whelton, who is also a member of the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority and a residential sales manager for Maine and New Hampshire for M&T Bank.
“My takeaway,” said Whelton, “is that we were able to facilitate this charrette using the new zoning ordinance in our exercise, and what it shows is that the changes allow for greater density, which allows developers to bring more affordable housing to the town.”
Butterfield concurred, noting: “We hope that what’s possible in North Conway can serve as an example to other towns in the MWV, encouraging them to evaluate their own zoning and explore what they can do. The housing crisis affects not just individual towns, but the entire region — and really, the whole state.”
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