— by Beatrice Burack

Hanover, NH 8/24/23

Hanover planning and zoning director Rob Houseman sees promise in what many might take for empty space—a five-acre former logging site next to the parking lot for the Mink Brook Community Forest. Houseman recalls coming to this site in 2018, when “there were log piles 20, 30 feet high running the full length.” Even then he thought, “There is opportunity here.”

After Hanover prevented a 250-unit long-term care facility from taking over the land—the 265-acre former Leavitt family farm on Greensboro Road— Houseman and a few other creative planners had an idea: conserve most of the property and develop this cleared parcel as workforce housing.

They took their idea on the road to land conservation conferences, introducing it as a way to marry conservation and housing development, two goals that often seem at odds. Their vision drew strong community support in Hanover—and still does. But now that the housing portion of the project is starting to evolve, neighbors worry the project is straying too far from the original plan.

A map posted at the public entrance to the Mink Brook Community Forest shows where future housing (the Creamsicle-colored parcel) might fit in next to the conserved lands.

That plan took shape at Hanover’s 2020 Town Meeting, when voters approved a warrant article to conserve most of the property and set aside “approximately four (4) acres” to “be transferred to Twin Pines Housing Trust (a non-profit housing management and development organization) for future development of a small cluster of cottage homes for workforce housing.”

Then-town manager Julia Griffin explained at the meeting that “somewhere in the (range of) six to ten units” would be built. “Probably eight units is most likely.”

Margaret Bragg, who lives next door to the proposed housing project, was “very much in favor of what Julia Griffin proposed at the 2020 Hanover Town Meeting,” she says. But now, “they’re (...) talking about 29 units and we don’t know what that looks like or where it could be put.”

Bragg is referring to a zoning change authorized as Warrant Article Five at last year’s Town Meeting. “That zoning amendment was trying to move the needle on workforce housing,” Houseman says, by permitting workforce housing to be built on “all properties that are serviced by sewer and water and are zoned for residential use,” including the Greensboro Road property. The amendment upped the maximum number of workforce housing units that could be built on the land from six to 29, according to Houseman. At this year’s town meeting, voters approved the transfer of five acres to “Twin Pines Housing Trust, or another nonprofit organization.”

The town defines workforce housing as “Housing development(s) (...) affordable for rent or purchase solely by individuals or households whose incomes are less than 120%” of the median income for Grafton County, as calculated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. As of August 2023, median family income in the county is $115,100.

“Nurses, EMTS, paramedics, highway crew, parks and rec employees. The people who make the community run, starting out in their career would all qualify for this type of housing,” says Houseman.

Hanover planning and zoning director Rob Houseman surveys the flat parcel of land where he envisions workforce housing will be built.

To Houseman, building workforce housing on the lot is a no-brainer. “(W)e can carve out five acres on (town) sewer and water, and identify it specifically for workforce housing, and do two things: protect important lands and develop housing that’s desperately needed,” he says.

As Houseman and town manager Alex Torpey explain in a FAQ document released to the public earlier this month, no decisions have yet been made as to how many units will actually go in on Greensboro Road or what these units will look like.

According to Houseman, this is typical for projects of this kind. “(Y)ou don’t often have a fully conceived project until you go through that process” of negotiation, followed by public input, he says.

But the lack of concrete details is concerning to neighbors like Bragg.

“I don’t think any of my neighbors have ever said that they didn’t want to have workforce housing in our neighborhood,” she says. “People’s concern was the numbers – that they had changed from being perhaps a cluster of small cottages to being 29 units, and not knowing where they’re going to go, what they’re going to look like.”

Jeff Acker, who’s lived nearby on Greensboro Road for over 22 years, says his opposition is to “the process,” not necessarily to the project itself. Hearing that as many as 29 units could be built on the property felt “like a bait and switch.”

“Show us a proposal and let us decide,” Acker says. “Let us ask questions. Let us see what you’re talking about. Let us decide as a town, ‘Is this the best use for that land and our resources?’”