Senior housing at old Rye Airfield a step closer
Webster's Stratham plan progresses; Breakfast Hill in holding pattern
Jack Driscoll
Even though the issue of workforce housing needs has jumped onto the front burner, three senior housing projects are still cooking. What follows is a brief update:
RCD at Rye Airfield Site
January looks to be the pivotal month for Rye’s first Retirement Community Development (RCD) project for those 62 and older. The 22 housing units will be located behind the Skate Board Park off Route One.
The Housing Partnership (THP), owner and operator, is hoping to receive approval of a $500,000 block grant in January that would pave the way for groundbreaking at the site of the former Rye Airfield some time in June or July, according to Executive Director Richard Ingram. New Hampshire's Community Development Finance Authority (CDFA) administers the block grant program using federal funds aimed at providing housing primarily for low and moderate income people.
As part of the funding process THP presented its plan for the senior affordable housing to County Commissioners on Dec. 2. Meanwhile THP expects to begin construction of a 63-unit project in Kennebunk, Maine, adding to its present owner-management portfolio of 14 properties that house 550 persons. One is located next to the Rye Public Library.
Rye voters approved an ordinance at the 2006 Town Election that paved the way for the 10-acre housing cluster. It took THP 11 months to get through the approval process, principally before the Planning Board. Construction is expected to take between 12 and 14 months.
Sketch shows final location of housing on the 10-acre lot with access (top) via Airfield Drive from Route One.
Webster's CCRC
Unable to get support for two Continuing Care Retirement Community efforts in Rye, the Rannie Webster Foundation decided to go elsewhere to build a CCRC and seems to making progress in Stratham. A Foundation subsidiary known as Webster Continuing Care of Rye also is awaiting word on funding and also is optimistic, according to Janet Brown who is heading the initiative.
Brown said that Webster got "a good reception" at a meeting of investment bankers in Philadelphia in October. Despite the economic downturn, already a reality at that point, "they thought they could get the seed money for us," Brown said. The funds would enable engineering and architectural drawings for the 91-acre site off Route 33 that has been the home of Great Bay Community College, which is moving to Pease in Newington.
Market studies and focus groups held a few months ago were "very favorable" and showed there is a demand for that type of housing on that site, said Janet Brown. Meanwhile, Webster has met with a variety of public groups that recently included a conceptual session with the Planning Board and a review of plans with the Conservation Commission. One important issue, Brown said, has been satisfying the town regarding ambulance service, because Stratham has a tradition it wishes to maintain of using volunteers.
Senior Condominiums on Breakfast Hill
Discussion of a 216-unit set of over-55 condominiums on Breakfast Hill has been put on hold pending resolution of zoning issues. The area in question, to the north of Breakfast Hill Road and behind commercial properties along Route One (Lafayette Road), is zoned for single residences. Proposed are nine buildings with 24 units in each, a scaled-down version of the Sterling Hill condominiums now existing in Exeter and built by the proposed developer of the Rye property, Eric Katz.
Site for over-55 plan. (Google map)
Katz has offered to pay most of the cost of extending the Portsmouth sewer system several hundred yards to the corner of Breakfast Hill Road which would benefit the Route One businesses.
Planning board members Samuel Winebaum and Marty Zivic have raised the question as to whether the property could contain some mixed-use housing. Atty. Malcolm McNeill of Dover, representing Katz’s Stonegate-NH Construction, LLC, of Portsmouth, has told the board he would not rule out anything but gave no indication such an adjustment was under consideration. Carolyn Beaulieu of the Ciborowski Trust said recently that any such change would probably require a different kind of developer.
"We are on hold, because the Planning Board is in a quandary over inclusionary housing," said Beaulieu, but she added, "We are still on track and hoping for a re-zoning approval."
Pending is a suggestion that the Katz firm and Ciborowski Associates participate in a charrette, a session involving collaborative discussion among various experts and interests, usually led by a facilitator and usually designed to produce a solution or solutions to difficult problems. Initially it was suggested the owner would pay the cost, but more recently a split in costs with the Town of Rye was proposed as being more fair.
At an August Planning Board session Atty. Bill Tucker, representing the Ciborowskis, said that their Realty Trust owned seven acres in the location of the old Rye Dump (west of Grove Road and to the north off Garland Road) that could be a site for affordable housing.
January, 2009
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