The Current Workforce Housing statutes, RSA 674:58-61, were passed by the state legislature in 2009. Under these new RSAs, all towns were directed to adopt a workforce housing ordinance or be penalized. (New Hampshire is not a home rule state, state law overrules local ordinances) <\/span><\/p>\n Briefly, the workforce housing laws require that municipalities like Londonderry that exercise zoning authority “shall provide reasonable and realistic opportunities for the development of workforce housing.” The requirements include rental multi-family housing. The Town must make sure that lot size and overall density requirements for workforce housing are reasonable. Municipalities also are obligated by state law to make sure that their local ordinances allow workforce housing developments to be economically viable. If a workforce housing project is denied the ability to go forward because a town\u2019s local ordinances are found to be too burdensome, the Town can be penalized, including allowing the project to go forward with a “builder\u2019s remedy.” In other words, the project can go forward as planned, without further Town input. <\/span><\/p>\n The first ordinance drafted and recommended by the Planning Board would have allowed buildings that included 20 units. This ordinance appeared likely to meet the fiscal responsibilities that were required by the state workforce housing statute. <\/span><\/p>\n In accordance with state law, a public hearing was held with the Town Council in 2009. During that process, a great deal of public input was received. Most people wanted the Council to deny the ordinance. The Town Council sent the draft ordinance back to the Planning Board with the direction that it would like to have the number of units decreased to something like 12-16 per building. After many months, an ordinance was sent back to the Council that allowed for 16 units, and with special approval, 20 units. However, the new ordinance also included provisions that required gradual phasing of workforce housing projects and demanded that 75% of a project\u2019s units be workforce housing. Most towns require only 25% workforce housing units and no other town requires 75%. The Town Council approved the ordinance, which is the ordinance that exists today. <\/span><\/p>\n Over the last few years as part of the ZBA process, developers with workforce housing projects have been granted multiple waivers from the ordinance because it does not meet the fiscal criteria of the state law. The ordinance does not allow large, rental, multi-family workforce housing projects to be economically viable. The Town Attorney has advised us that, had the original ordinance been left unchanged, it was more defensible under state law.<\/p>\n The current status of the matter is that the Town Council has asked that a new ordinance be drafted that is fiscally responsible and meets all of the regulations spelled out in the state workforce housing statutes. A draft ordinance and revisions to the draft ordinance already have been submitted to the Planning Board. The Council expects to have the Planning Board submit an amended ordinance to it before the summer.<\/p>\n Town Of Londonderry, New Hampshire 268B Mammoth Road Workforce Housing Press Release The Current Workforce Housing statutes, RSA 674:58-61, were passed by the state legislature in 2009. Under these new RSAs, all towns were directed to adopt a workforce housing ordinance or be penalized. (New Hampshire is not a home rule state, state law overrules local ordinances) Briefly,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/span>Londonderry, New Hampshire 03053
\nFOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
\nJohn Farrell, Council Chairman
\n(603) 289-2011
\nDate: April 20, 2015<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"