The Londonderry Master Plan Steering Committee met on July 17, looking to finalize the first few draft chapters of the new Plan.
“We did receive a lot of documents from both the survey, as well as the draft of these chapters over the past few weeks. Committee members have had the opportunity to review them and the public has had the opportunity to review them,” said Chair Jeff Penta. “I’m definitely looking to move forward with these first three chapters.”
The main focus of the Master Plan draft was housing and affordability. Sylvia von Aulock from the Southern NH Planning Commission focused on gathering data to address the issue wherever possible, including national sources like the federal census and the American Community Survey (ACS) estimate.
“The decision whether to use the census versus the ACS comes down to weighing precision versus timeliness,” said von Aulock, who also considered looking at nationwide employment data, statewide statistics, and townwide statistics. The use of different sources to compare Londonderry to other towns in NH. “The Master Plan is typically a 10-year period we’re looking at, so for 10 years, it’s a guidance document.”
Committee members raised the possibility of tracking building permits to get an idea of how many new residential units were being built, noting it was “more recent data” compared to something like the decennial census.
“My point in reminding us of this 10-year plan that we’re working on, it that you can see the cyclical nature of this,” said von Aulock. “Some developer will have a concept. They’ll come, they’ll talk to the Planning Board about their concept, and they start their planning. You can see the planning years, those are the dips on out graphs, and you can see the building years, those are where there are peaks.”
She noted a sudden decrease in building permits in 2023 compared to 2022, for this reason, highlighting why it was important to examine long-term trends, not just annual data. She added that more housing was being granted during the “peaks” of housing construction for Londonderry and that the town was growing faster than surrounding communities.
Other concerns came from the use of “affordable” in the vision statement. In the past, the Steering Committee raised several concerns as to whether affordable housing was possible without state and federal assistance. It was also unclear as to how to define “affordable.”
“There’s a lot of ambiguity in that term. I know some people wanted a definition,” said von Aulock. “Affordable in this case means housing for people at various income levels and includes a variety of housing.”
The statutory definition of “affordable” labels it as housing that does not exceed more than 30% of household income. Based on the town’s median income, that would equal a home priced between $450,000 and $500,000.
“We can use that definition,” said Committee member Marge Badois, who agreed that there were only a limited number of homes in town available in that price range. “When you say to a contractor ‘these aren’t affordable houses and they say’ ‘well of course they are, they sold, they’re affordable to somebody’ and you can’t argue with that. People want a definition.”
Members agreed to add the legal definition of “affordable housing” to the Master Plan’s glossary of terms. Definitions were also added to clarify the meaning of Londonderry commuting destinations, walkability, vacant land, density, open space preservation, and sustainable development.
The Steering Committee unanimously voted to send their latest draft to the Planning Board for review and consideration, noting that a public hearing would eventually happen with the draft. All residents who provided their email during the initial survey would receive updates on the Master Plan process.
“Are you going to put the date and time of the public hearing on there? So, they’re aware of it?” asked Deb Paul, who was at the meeting to speak as a resident of Londonderry.
Committee members agreed residents would be kept up-to-date.
Meetings of the Master Plan Steering Committee are scheduled for the third Thursday of every month, at 6 p.m. in the Moose Hill Council Chambers.