The first October meeting of Londonderry’s Master Plan Steering Committee raised questions about how to approach future issues in town, with a focus on housing and those services geared towards the town’s older residents.
“Does Londonderry offer a suitable, affordable selection of housing for older adults wanting to downsize into age-friendly housing or housing suitable of all ages, all abilities?” asked Sylvia Von Aulock, Executive Director of the Southern NH Planning Commission while reading the results of the Master Plan housing survey. “About 47% of the people responding said ‘no, not enough affordable for older adults who want to downsize.'”
Several Committee members noted that 55-plus housing was often expensive. Chair, Jeff Penta, noted that a past ordinance, designed to favor the development of smaller “downsizing” condos, previously failed to reduce the cost of general housing in Londonderry.
In-home, self-care services for residents were also a question on the survey, with respondents highlighting a need for self-care needs like medication assistance, assistance in getting to places, and making it easier to connect with family and friends as particularly important. The results indicated that many elderly residents with preexisting housing wanted more options available to age in place. These concerns were nothing new.
“We’ve done a lot of age-friendly surveys over the years,” said Von Aulock. “Back in 2016-17, we surveyed all 14 communities in the region, and transportation was the number one concern for people as they age.”
However, even for elderly residents, there was a great deal of variety on what level of assistance they wanted or needed from the town.
“I sat with a woman filling this survey out, and she probably put half of them ‘n/a,'” said Committee member, Marge Badois. “She’s active, lives in a senior housing condo, but she drives, so she didn’t think much of it applied.”
The hair warned against trying to draw too many conclusions from some of the initial results of the Master Plan survey.
“There’s almost 500 people in this survey who are under the age of 45, half of them.” “These really don’t pertain to me because I’m younger. To me it’s not applicable.”
Every resident filling out a survey answered the same set of questions. Von Aulock planned to break the results down by age group and present them to the Steering Committee by next month.
Committee member, Lynn Wiles, expressed his concern that, even when looking at different age groups, the wording on questions aimed at age-related housing and services was not always clear.
“Are people thinking that the government is going to provide the town? Or the state is providing these services? Because most of these services are already available,” he said. “I don’t know what people’s expectations are.”
The Executive Director saw the results as useful in coordinating with the Senior Center and Senior Resources Community to make existing resources more available.