I received a note from a resident:

… We are strongly in favor of providing senior and affordable housing in Lyme.  We cannot quite understand the stipulations [of the proposed amendment] regarding measurements, etc.   It makes our head spin, especially since we weren’t in on the ground floor…

I wrote the following response:

Please don’t be fooled by the name “Senior Housing”. I don’t believe this amendment will ever benefit Lyme. The Planning Board’s heart is in the right place – they really do want housing for seniors. But the language they have proposed is so restrictive that it’s unlikely to attract anyone to build it. Here’s why:

• The units will be expensive. My rough numbers indicate the units would thus cost a little over $400,000, since they are confined to the Lyme Common District, and 10 units must bear the cost. If they could be built elsewhere in town (say, on Route 10 where land is cheaper) with more units (say, 20 units, like at 85 Dartmouth College Highway, or The Greens in Hanover) the price of each unit drops by nearly $100,000.

• It requires that existing homes be torn down or remodeled. With notable exceptions, there are no vacant lots in the Lyme Common District. To create new housing, we must lose existing (historic?) housing. The exceptions, the vacant lots, could already support good senior housing under the current ordinance.

• It will be hard to design the homes. You said all those measurements made your head hurt. But those legal requirements make it even worse for someone trying to design and build the homes. Not only must they consider all the normal questions (How big should the units be? How much should they cost? One bedroom or two? How much common space?) but the amendment further constrains the design by limiting footprint, limiting the number of homes, limiting who can live there, and more.

• The language is prone to legal squabbles. The development must be “harmonious with … the character of the neighborhood”. Yet it permits up to 12,000 square feet of floor area (bigger than the Lyme Country Store.) Plunking a building like that in the Historic District, three times bigger than many neighboring homes, might well provoke a lawsuit.

So for all those reasons, I don’t believe anyone will bother to investigate Lyme based on this amendment. It’s too expensive, too hard to design, too much legal uncertainty. There are plenty of other towns nearby that are crying for new housing, and that don’t have a history of giving developers a hard time.

Thanks again.

Rich Brown
795-2525

Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public body, such as the Lyme Planning Board, Budget Committee, or Trustees of the Trust Funds where I volunteer. I would be interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

The Planning Board holds a Public Hearing on the proposed Senior Housing amendment on Thursday, 30 January at 7:00pm at the Town Offices. Update: The final language is shown below.

This will be an opportunity for the residents of Lyme to ask questions (for example, Questions for the Planning Board) about the proposed amendment.

I hope to see you tomorrow night.

Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public body, such as the Lyme Planning Board, Budget Committee, or Trustees of the Trust Funds where I volunteer. I would be interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

(Can’t read the PDF above? Download it at
https://richb-lyme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Senior-Housing-zoning-amendment-Final-March-2020.pdf)

A few interesting events and articles:

• NHHFA 2020 Homeownership Conference: I always find value in these conferences sponsored by the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority because they discuss issues of funding and building housing of all kinds and price levels. March 3 in Manchester, NH, $35 registration. For more information: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=a5gogocab&oeidk=a07egvnsmhu2c362cbb

• CohoUS Simple Series Kickoff: This online workshop covers what cohousing is, and how it works. It’s for people who have heard about cohousing, but don’t yet understand the basics. $20 registration for the entire four-hour session. https://www.cohousing.org/2020-kickoff/

• Everything you wanted to know about your property tax… InDepthNH magazine offers a discussion of property tax, and some of the legislative actions in 2020 that may affect your tax bill. The first topic covered is Current Use and how that policy shifts tax burden away from large landowners to other property owners in the community. Read the full article at: http://indepthnh.org/2020/01/26/everything-you-want-to-know-about-your-property-tax-but-were-afraid-to-ask/

• New Hampshire House hears Workforce Housing Bills: NH Business Review writes about two bills before the NH House regarding housing. HB 1629 will require training for planning and zoning boards, and also makes changes to workforce and affordable housing law. HB 1632 offers tax breaks for developers and homebuyers of workforce housing. https://www.nhbr.com/new-hampshire-house-panel-hears-governors-workforce-housing-bills/

Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public body, such as the Lyme Planning Board, Budget Committee, or Trustees of the Trust Funds where I volunteer. I would be interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

The Planning Board has proposed rules for allowing Senior Housing in the Lyme Common District. Despite the attractiveness of this plan, requiring the project be in the center of Lyme imposes significant costs on such a project.

The analysis below shows that 10 units of 900sf each, when considering the land acquisition, architect, engineering, water, septic, site, financing, and other costs will come in over $400,000 each.

A significant portion of the cost is land acquisition (average of $627,000 for the Lyme Common District) and the limit of 10 homes.

Simply changing those two variables: moving the development into a less expensive part of town (where the acquisition cost might be closer to $100,000) and allowing 20 homes to share the fixed costs drops each home to $307,000.

While these are not inexpensive homes, this simple change takes out almost $100,000 from their price.

Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public body, such as the Lyme Planning Board, Budget Committee, or Trustees of the Trust Funds where I volunteer. I would be interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

(Can’t read the PDF above? Download it at
https://richb-lyme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Cost-of-a-Senior-Housing-Development.pdf)

As I drive around the Upper Valley, I have been collecting a list of services that exist in other towns. Would they be interesting or helpful in Lyme? Should any these below be prohibited? (and look for the extra credit question at the end…)

• Appliance repair shop
• Art gallery
• Art studio
• Auto repair shop
• Ballet studio
• Barber shop
• Bike shop
• Co-working space
• Coffee shop
• Daycare
• Dentist office
• Excavation pit
• Food store
• Food truck
• Funeral home
• Garden store
• Gravel pit
• Gym/workout space
• Hair salon
• Health clinic
• Hotel/Inn
• House of worship
• Ice cream shop
• Jewelry shop
• Laundromat
• Makerspace
• Meeting space
• Office building (new)
• Office building (converting an existing home)
• Office building (physician/clinic)
• Pharmacy/drug store
• Restaurant
• Retail with Lyme, NH & VT goods
• Retail with maple syrup produced on-site
• Retail with maple syrup made elsewhere
• Sandwich shop
• School
• Sculpture studio
• Ski facilities
• Ski shop
• Tennis courts
• Tennis shop
• Walking trails
• Yoga studio

There may never be a demand for some of these services. But what should determine whether they come to town? The Zoning Ordinance? Or should we allow the property owner to figure out whether a particular use is viable?

Extra credit: The current ordinance permits some of these uses in the Rural District; some are prohibited (and for some, it’s hard to tell). Can you guess which is which? (Hint: see Table 4.1 of the Lyme Zoning Ordinance) I would love to hear your answers: richb.lyme@gmail.com

Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public body, such as the Lyme Planning Board, Budget Committee, or Trustees of the Trust Funds where I volunteer. I would be interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

The Planning Board will hold a public working session for a Senior Housing amendment on 9 January 2020. The text of the current draft is below.

The plan is to use this working session to finalize the wording for presentation at a Public Hearing on 30 January 2020.

(Can’t read the PDF above? Download it at
https://richb-lyme.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Senior-Housing-Proposal-ZA-for-9Jan2020.pdf)

Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public body, such as the Lyme Planning Board, Budget Committee, or Trustees of the Trust Funds where I volunteer. I would be interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

(Can’t read the PDF above? Download it at
https://richb-lyme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Planned-Development-Changes-March2020.pdf)

At the previous (25Nov2019) work session, the Planning Board began to come to terms with how difficult it is to design senior housing. (Link to the video…)

They spent the session setting criteria for a senior housing project: it could only be in the Lyme Common District, only 10 units, each must be less than 1,200 square feet, the total project may have only 12,000 square feet of gross floor area. They then began adding other restrictions regarding age and number of residents, whether units must be handicap-accessible, and construction techniques that would not be permitted.

Having made those decisions about what “senior housing must look like”, the Board hopes to attract a potential developer who will try to build reasonably-priced, marketable units with attractive amenities (common spaces, garages) within those constraints.

Or maybe not. It’s far simpler (and cheaper) for a developer to build in a town that doesn’t have such restrictive design parameters and rules.

Nonetheless, the Planning Board will meet again on Monday, 2 December at 7pm to continue to try to improve the current language to withstand legal scrutiny and meet their notion of what might be attractive senior housing.

Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public body, such as the Lyme Planning Board, Budget Committee, or Trustees of the Trust Funds where I volunteer. I would be interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

At its 25 November 2019 meeting, the Planning Board held a work session to discuss the language of a proposed Senior Housing amendment to the Zoning Ordinance. Although they made progress, there remain many outstanding issues. The Board decided to continue the meeting to 2 December 2019 at 7pm for further work.

Once again, this meeting has been scheduled on a date when it was known that I could not attend. Consequently, I will be posting questions on the newest language (below) with a request that the Board consider these issues at next Monday’s meeting.

Feel free to share this post on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or email. Any opinions expressed here are solely my own, and not those of any public body, such as the Lyme Planning Board, Budget Committee, or Trustees of the Trust Funds where I volunteer. I would be interested to hear your thoughts – you can reach me at richb.lyme@gmail.com.

(Can’t read the PDF above? Download it at
https://richb-lyme.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Senior-Housing-Proposal-ZA-for-2Dec2019.pdf)