HOOKSETT, N.H. – Earlier this month, the Hooking Zoning Board of Adjustment voted 4-1 to approve variance requests allowing Chelmsford Hooksett Properties LLC to construct 160 residential units in the former Cigna building at 2 College Park Drive, a large step in what could become a significant addition to the Greater Manchester area’s available portfolio of housing.
Built in 1986, the almost 100,000 square foot building sits on a mostly wooded 35-acre lot at the intersection of College Park Drive and Route 3. It has remained largely vacant since it was purchased in 2021 by Chelmsford Hooksett Properties LLC, a company of Manchester-based real estate developer Brady Sullivan.
Currently, the building is zoned in the first of Hooksett’s five different Mixed Use Development zone types, which does not allow for any housing by right, Chelmsford Hooksett Properties LLC, was denied for a variance seeking 80 units in 2021 and was denied a rehearing to reconsider the denial in 2022., appealed that decision to the New Hampshire Housing Appeals Board (see below), with most of the prongs in the zoning board’s statements of fact behind the decision being overturned by the Housing Appeals Board.
Members of the Zoning Board struggled to determine whether the criteria for a variance were met. Zoning Board Members Matt St. Pierre and Gerald Hyde felt that allowing residential units on the property would not be out of line with the character of the neighborhood given residential neighborhoods just south of the property.
The collapsing market for office space since the COVID-19 pandemic was also deemed as a hardship for Chelmsford Hooksett Properties as it was determined that since efforts to find tenants for the building were unfruitful to this point and were likely to be so for the near future, restricting the ability to put residential units at the property would likely force it to be vacant at Chelmsford Hooksett Properties’ expense.
Chair Anne Stelmach built on this premise noting that possible comparable uses to housing that would not require a variance, such as building a hotel, were also deemed financially non-viable.
St. Pierre also added that with the current configuration of the building, renovation would be needed if a tenant only wanted to use part of the building instead of using all of the building as Cigna did.
Substantial justice, or the theory that granting the variance would help the applicant more than it would harm abutting residents, was met according to members of the board citing the belief that the lot no longer being vacant would not create a noticeable difference to nearby residents given expected traffic counts would actually be slightly lower if used for residential purposes compared to the building’s former office use. Additionally, St. Pierre said that the proposed use had a low impact on the community compared to some other potential uses and that the setbacks from property lines are far beyond what is required, creating a noise buffer for neighbors.
The variance was granted on a 4-1 vote, with Richard Bairam joining Hyde, St. Pierre and Stelmach. Timothy Stewart voted in opposition after hearing concerns at previous meetings over fears from nearby residents regarding property values of land in the surrounding area as well as disbelief that a non-residential use could not be obtained at the property given its proximity to nearby busy roads, recent renovations at the property and a belief that the building could be feasibly subdivided among multiple tenants.
