MANCHESTER, N.H. – Over the past few months, City of Manchester Planning and Community Development Director Jeff Belanger has traveled across the city talking with people about how the proposed new zoning ordinance would impact Manchester’s neighborhoods. On Tuesday morning he was back in front of another crowd to talk about the proposed ordinance, but this time it was the Queen City’s business leaders who made up the audience.
Belanger and Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais were the first hosts of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce’s new Future Focus First series, which seeks to create dialogue between local government and business leaders over key issues impacting the city.
In this discussion, Belanger provided an overview of how the proposed zoning ordinance changes would impact local business. Belanger said that the most notable impact comes in the form of the ordinances’ focus on increasing the city’s housing stock, largely by adjusting zoning districts to reflect the slew of variances already in place addressing the high demand for higher density housing near the city’s center. Decreased minimum lot sizes are also a feature of the new ordinances that allow developers to create more housing than before with the same amount of space.
“We’ve heard over and over again that you cannot attract a talented workforce if you don’t have the housing to bring them here,” said Belanger. “That’s something the zoning ordinance aims to enable for all kinds of housing among all types of economic levels.”
Some members of the audience asked Belanger questions about facets of the proposed ordinance such as minimum parking requirements in parts of the city and the possibility of inclusionary zoning methods. Belanger said that the proposed ordinance sought to strike a balance as too much regulation could deter developers from starting projects while not enough could create projects that might not meet the needs of the public.
“I think the business community is very excited to hear about the amount of housing units coming into Manchester and some of today’s questions from the audience recognized that there needs to be a balance when it comes to some of these units being affordable so the city grows in the right way,” said Manchester Chamber of Commerce CEO Heather McGrail.
The proposed ordinance also seeks to simplify zoning in the city through removing superfluous types of zones and overlay districts such as one near SNHU Arena, which Belanger told the crowd had a 30-page guidebook of vague terminology that provided an additional obstacle for builders.
He also noted the increased emphasis on mixed-use zoning, again seeking to recognize small businesses that already dot the city while encouraging more types of limited-intensity business that create vital and walkable neighborhoods such as corner stores, barber shops and cafes.
Ruais emphasized Belanger’s point that the ordinance is still open to more feedback from the public in addition to the approximately 1,000 people and 1,400 survey responses that came out of the various meetings held around the city.
“One of the things I said at the kickoff to these meetings was that the worst thing we could have done is woken up on some bright November morning in November and said ‘here’s a thousand-page document with all the changes that are about to occur,” he said.
“If there’s a lack of information being presented, people are always going to be rightfully afraid of that. So I think what people have seen throughout this process is that it’s going to be incredibly iterated and we’re going to make changes based off concerns that we hear,” he added.
McGrail said that she expects these discussions to take place every two months or so, with a hopeful focus on public safety at the next edition of the series.
More information on the city’s proposed zoning ordinance change can be found at manchesternh.gov/landusecode