A rendering of New England Family Housing’s proposal to put 100 units of affordable housing and 94 condominiums on 40 acres of land along the Merrimack River in Penacook.
A developer looking to build nearly 200 units of housing in Penacook has asked the Zoning Board to reexamine the city’s denial of the project, claiming that the rejection means he is “deprived of any reasonable use of the land” by the city.
“The applicant and property owner should not have to wait years for the city to amend the Master Plan to use” its property, the request states. “While the public interest is incorporated in zoning decisions, it must be balanced with the rights of a property owner to make use of its property.”
Because zoning boards can only grant rehearings under specific circumstances, they don’t often happen. But anyone who is considering taking legal action to overturn zoning decisions must first try for a rehearing.
In January, New England Family Housing and its CEO Kevin Lacasse asked the board for a variance to build 100 affordable apartments and nearly as many condominiums on a 40-acre property between Interstate 93 and the Merrimack River in Penacook, just south of the Wheelabrator plant and new Market Basket. The property is zoned for industrial, not residential, use.
City staff were firmly against the proposal, arguing that Concord’s relatively low amount of industrially designated land should be preserved for future economic growth. Whether or not this property ought to be used for something else, according to Deputy City Manager Matt Walsh, would be evaluated when the city redoes its master plan and zoning maps, a process planned to begin next year and last several more.
The zoning board, though initially split, ultimately denied New England Family Housing’s application, and its findings aligned with many of the city’s arguments.
“The site is developable as industrial even though the demand for industrial use on the site is not currently present,” state the board’s conclusions as written out in meeting minutes. “A gain is made to the general public by denying the use variance, preserving it for future industrial use, and denial is consistent with the master plan and the city’s goals, and is good planning for the City of Concord.”
Challenging that decision, Lacasse’s team argued the zoning board ignored evidence he provided showing that his project met the variance qualifications and instead weighed more heavily Walsh’s testimony.
In denying a variance, the zoning board framed the conflict between Lacasse’s proposal for the property and the city’s planning documents as one to be taken up not through a variance but through a rezoning request or during the master plan process.
Lacasse told the zoning board that he had sought industrial plans of this property without success. Without rezoning or variance, any other type of development of the property isn’t allowed. In having to wait for the master plan to be redone, his rehearing request states, he is being denied his right as a property owner to use the land.
“If the city plans to landbank the North 40 until an unknown industrial use will come in the future, the city must compensate the applicant and the property owner,” ” Lacasse’s rehearing request concludes.
When they debuted in 2022, Lacasse’s plans included more than 900 units of housing — a mix of townhomes, condominiums and apartments, both market-rate and “workforce housing” — alongside retail, restaurants and storage units. The proposal went by the name Monitor Way because it included 95 acres of land to be purchased from Newspapers of New England, the parent company of the Concord Monitor. The newspaper had no role in the proposed sale and the plans did not include the newspaper’s office building on Monitor Drive.
Those plans were scaled down to the 40-acre property in question, which is referred to as the “North 40” after city staff and councilors were concerned about the impact of such a large project on city infrastructure. It also took on a partnership with CATCH Neighborhood Housing after multiple city councilors said they’d be more likely to back rezoning the land if the project included affordable housing.
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