The Preservation of Affordable Housing submitted multiple plans to Portsmouth for developing below-market-rate housing at the former Sherburne School site. (Courtesy of the City of Portsmouth via Preservation of Affordable Housing)
The Portsmouth City Council is aiming to select its partner for the redevelopment of the city-owned former Sherburne School at its Dec. 16 meeting, according to Mayor Deaglan McEachern.
The City Council and Portsmouth’s Blue Ribbon Housing Committee held a work session Thursday night (Nov. 14) to discuss the process of choosing a finalist to create below-market-rate housing to help address the city’s desperate need for more affordable housing.
Because Thursday’s event was a workshop meeting, the council could not take any formal votes. But McEachern said he believes council members — and Housing Committee members — reached a consensus The Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) and the Portsmouth Housing Authority were the best nonprofits to work with the city from among the four finalists.
“That’s exciting, it’s a big step forward for Portsmouth,” McEachern said.
Final two proposals for housing development emerge
The Housing Committee is slated to meet Thursday to come up with questions to submit to the top two finalists, and McEachern believes POAH and PHA will be invited to appear at the council’s Dec. 2 meeting.
“I was happy there was the ability to whittle it down to two … and it seems as though we’re closer now to getting a project that’s going to be in a partnership with Portsmouth, and the community that’s right next door (to the Sherburne School),” McEachern said. “It’s something we can move forward with.”
He acknowledged people can still debate exactly what defines affordable housing.
But the “number one takeaway” he had from Thursday’s workshop meeting is “that all these units are going to be below market rate.”
“There’s none of that coming, the market is not meeting the demand for that,” he said.
McEachern believes there is a “dire need” for below-market-rate housing in Portsmouth, and it impacts “what kind of community we’re going to have.”
People of all incomes need to be able to afford to live in Portsmouth, or the community will suffer, he said.
Questions that could be posed to POAH and PHA include those crafted “to better understand what type of partner they will be and what we can expect from them,” he said. “It is not picking a design, it’s picking a partner to make an investment in time and resources. That’s going to take a partner to be able to deliver that.”
The city’s Selection Committee recently reviewed and rated the four finalists’ proposals.
To read the rest of the article, visit seacoastonline.com.
This article is being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.
