At the last meeting, the Planning Board discussed potential changes to the Ordinance to permit some form of senior housing in Lyme. The first proposal was to use the Federal HOPA (Housing for Older Persons Act of 1995) definition of, “at least 80 percent of the occupied units must be occupied by at least one person 55 years of age
The Planning Board is considering changes to the Lyme Zoning Ordinance to permit the development of Senior Housing. I propose to use the existing Planned Development language to permit a broad range of housing for seniors. Planned Development allows placing multiple buildings on a single parcel, multiple dwelling units within a building (up to six), and
In an earlier note, I detailed some of the characteristics that make senior housing attractive. This housing could include a combination of: Clustered homes and apartments with neighbors nearby for ease of access and social interaction A mix of unit sizes, to serve the differing needs of Lyme residents A variety of services: shared space
Two years ago, the Lyme Planning Board hosted a Senior Housing Forum where community members spoke about their thoughts and hopes for senior housing. The quote below comes from the Planning Board minutes of 28 September 2017: Item 1: Senior Housing Forum … The Board discussed with the attendees the various forms that senior housing
At a recent meeting (22 Aug 2019) the Lyme Planning Board discussed a Senior Housing amendment to the Ordinance. I expressed concerns about the draft proposal that had been circulated, and asked questions about the goals. Rather than spend time on that draft, other board members encouraged me to draw up my own goals for
Noah Hodgetts, Assistant Planner for NH Division of Planning publishes a weekly summary of Planning News. It summarizes and links to a handful of stories from around the state each week. Here is this week’s list: NH Supreme Court denies Northern Pass appeal Plans for Laconia State School site discussed Amherst plans to create safer
Mike Kiess from Vital Communities has sent out a request for responses to a short survey set up by the VT Department of Housing and Community Development. The deadline’s short, but they’re looking for responses from both VT and NH The VT Department of Housing and Community Development is starting a project to create templates for bylaws
The Current Use law in New Hampshire provides a tax break for certain property owners who choose not to change the “current use” of their property to a higher level of development. However it shifts the tax burden to property owners who do not have property in “current use”. Here are some details. In 1973,
I was browsing around the Strong Towns web site, and came upon their criteria for measuring the strength and resilience of a town. They point out that full technical analysis is time consuming and often not usable by non-technical people. So they designed a ten question survey at https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/11/15/strong-towns-strength-test My favorite question is #3: 3. Imagine
On 2 April 2019, I went to a talk sponsored by New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority in Claremont, NH. The announcement stated: What does it mean to be a “Strong Town”? In April, nationally known planner and engineer Chuck Marohn will speak at community events in Rochester, Concord, Claremont and Portsmouth to discuss the STRONG TOWNS perspective of community economic