Exeter eyes zoning amendment to boost affordable housing
EXETER — A proposed zoning change that aims to create more housing and commercial opportunities beyond downtown is on the ballot for the March Town Meeting.
Town Planner Dave Sharples said the proposal encourages mixed-use development in areas with roads, water, and sewer services.
Currently, mixed-use neighborhood development is only allowed in two of the town’s five commercial districts, which include Water, Front and Lincoln streets.
The proposal would expand the zoning to Portsmouth Avenue, from Green Hill Road (where Walgreens is) to the Exeter-Stratham town line, and a portion of Epping Road, the half-mile stretch between Great Bay Kids Company to Front Row Pizzeria.
While commercial businesses are allowed along these two areas, housing is not.
The Planning Board voted on Thursday, Jan. 25, to unanimously recommend voters support the expansion of mixed-use development. Because it’s a zoning amendment, the warrant article cannot be changed during the town deliberative session and will go before voters as presented on March 12.
Sharples noted that, if approved, the amendment is only an “optional tool” for landowners. The amendment allows a maximum height of 50 feet or four stories for a new development, with the requirement that at least 10% of its housing units are affordable housing.
Why zoning amendment is being proposed?
Sharples said the decision to propose the expansion of mixed-use neighborhood development came following a discussion by Exeter officials regarding its future growth and needs.
“We really want to grow, ideally, in my opinion, in a fiscally responsible manner,” he explained. “Land use that kinda pays for itself in taxes that doesn’t ideally draw a deficit and has to be subsidized from other parts of town, in an environmentally sound way, the least impact on the natural environment.”
One way to do that, according to Sharples, is to build upwards instead of outwards.
“Exeter’s pretty developed, we’re pretty built out as far as available vacant land… most of the really nice viable land for development is under conservation now,” he said. “We’ve sprawled out across the countryside… a lot of types of land use don’t necessarily pay for themselves with the taxes they generate.”
As an example, Sharples pointed to the vacant space at 29 Front Street, across from the post office. The 3,500-square-foot land is currently on the market for $350,000.
“Say they put a commercial (business) at the bottom and six residential units up above it,” he said. “You got six residential units – you’ve not added one foot of sidewalk, you’ve not added one foot of sewer and water pipe, haven’t added any roadways – but you’ve added value.”
He said adding infrastructure to support new developments will cost the town a lot of money in the long run.
“Density and redevelopment are usually much more of a fiscal benefit to the town and taxpayers than greenfield development, meaning to sprawl across the landscape,” he said. “If you add growth without adding infrastructure, you alleviate that long-term cost associated with adding that, and you add more people to pay for the same infrastructure.”
Sharples said there are currently less than five undeveloped plots within a portion of Portsmouth Avenue and Epping Road.
“The potential is in redevelopment,” he said. “… The underlying zoning still applies; this is just an option.”