Rebecca Marshall of Nelson attends the Cottage Court Overlay workshop at Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship, out of curiosity to learn more about local housing for her goals of buying a home, Tuesday afternoon in Keene. (Photo by Hannah Schroeder, Keene Sentinel)
As Keene continues work on a new ordinance to allow smaller-format housing in certain zones of the city, about 25 people attended a workshop Tuesday, Jan. 9 to learn more about the proposal and provide feedback.
The workshop, held at the Hannah Grimes Center for Entrepreneurship on Roxbury Street, encouraged attendees to discuss the regulations for building cottage courts. The audience also offered suggestions for city staff to keep in mind as the ordinance goes through the approval process at City Hall in the next few months.
Cottage courts are groups of small houses around a shared green space according to the city’s website. These homes, typically about 1,200 square feet or less, can be sold or rented.
The ordinance would permit the development of these cottage courts in any residential zoning district, where a connection to the city’s water and sewer system is possible.
Community Development Director Jesse Rounds said that the city is looking to make this change in an effort to diversify the kinds of units that developers can build in the city, thereby offering more places to live.
“We have this weird problem where there are jobs here and there’s an attraction to Keene, but somehow we’re losing population and we think that’s just lack of housing,” he said. “So what we want to do with this ordinance … is just encourage people to develop housing.”
Rounds pointed to data yielded in a housing study that Camoin Associates presented to Keene city councilors last April. The report found that while Keene’s population declined by two percent, the number of households increased by 3 percent. This trend appears to be driven by a shift toward fewer people living in households, which in turn keeps a tight hold on housing availability.
The average household size in Keene in 2021 was about two people. The report also notes that 40 percent of Keene’s population (22,953 per the U.S. Census Bureau) lives alone.
Community development staff have said that they want to create an attractive option for people who want to downsize their homes.
This push by the city for different forms of development comes as Keene, like many other Granite State communities, is facing a housing squeeze. And as the Elm City strives to meet the need for 1,400 new housing units by the end of the decade, Rounds said cottage courts are another tool for development possibilities.
“We’re really looking to private citizens to decide that they want to build housing,” he said. “Whatever it is, hopefully we hit upon one form of development that someone says ‘oh yeah I want to do that, I want to see that happen.'”
Many of those in attendance were in favor of permitting cottages in Keene.
Tony Ferrantello, a Keene resident and retired architect, said he thinks these new zoning policies could pave the way for developers to get creative with how they build small-format housing.
“I think it’s one option of many,” he said. “I think it’s great, but it’s not just limited to cottages, I think it’s limited to the ingenuity of how the architect and the owners or stakeholders come together to make it work.”
Rob Hamm of Keene, another attendee, told a reporter that he hopes the cottages will provide an affordable option for people who rent to become homeowners.
“We need 1,400 more units and I hope this would alleviate some of the housing crunch,” he said.”
But while Keene’s goal is to create more permanent housing for its residents, perhaps an unintended consequence would be property owners converting their land into “mini-resorts” or short-term rentals, according to City Councilor Andrew Madison.
He commended the city for thinking outside the box to create more housing options for the working class, but he raised concern that without proper city oversight, a cottage court ordinance could lead to owners instead making a vacation or party spot for tourists.
“Any plans to move forward with Cottage Courts need to include strong restrictions to ensure that those properties are used for housing, and not short-term rentals, he wrote in an email to Rounds, Keene Mayor Jay Kahn and City Manager Elizabeth Dragon. “We need housing, not hotels. We need residences, not resorts.”
Rounds told a reporter that the community development department shares Madison’s concerns regarding short-term rental properties, but he said he believes that it would be more fitting to discuss imposing regulations for short-term rentals on a broader scale, not just for cottages.
“We want the housing to be for residents, renters and homeowners,” he said.
“We don’t think [regulations for short-term rentals are] appropriate for this ordinance, but we recognize that it’s something we really need to craft or pursue and we want to start having that conversation now.”
This article is being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.
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