The Peterborough Planning Board voted to revise a proposed amendment on a lot size ordinance in the town’s Traditional Neighborhood Overlay Zone at a public hearing Monday night.
The board will bring the proposed amendment forward to a public hearing in January.
The proposal would change requirements for minimum lot sizes in Peterborough’s Traditional Neighborhood Overlay Zone to 5,000 square feet per housing unit, regardless of what type of housing is built.
The town’s current ordinance requires 10,000 square feet for one or two dwelling units, plus 5,000 square feet for each additional unit in the Family District” and “5,000 square feet for one dwelling unit, plus 2,500 square feet for each additional unit in the General Residence District.”
“Having two different requirements for the two different zones does not make sense, as you have people living next door or across the street from one another who can’t do the same things with their lots,” said Planning Board Chair Carl Staley. “Hopefully, people will be happy with this proposal, because it would allow people with the same lots to do the same thing.”
Peterborough’s Master Plan prioritizes the creation of more housing within the TNOZ, which encompasses the part of town served by town water and sewer. The TNOZ includes the sections of the Family District and the General Residence District closest to the center of Peterborough.
For a complete map of Peterborough’s zoning districts, go to: cms5.revize.com/revize/peterboroughnh/GIS/Zoning%20Districts%20Poster.pdf.
Planning Board member Gary Gorski, who wrote the first draft of the amendment, said the board had an opportunity to make the ordinance simpler and easier to understand.
“I’m fine with this change. It just has to be really clear, as long as we do a good job and people understand what it is. I am entirely on board with this as long as people understand what we are doing,” Gorski said.
According to the Planning Board, the proposed change would allow for multi-family structures in the Family District, but “only through Planning Board review and with strict conformance to the regulations of Traditional Neighborhood Overlay Zone.”
Multi-family units are already permitted in the General Residence District.
Danica Miller, the town planner, said the goal of the amendment “is to create consistent rules for multi-family housing in the Traditional Neighborhood Overlay District.”
All multi-family housing would be limited to eight units per lot under the proposed amendment.
“We are looking to create an equitable zoning ordinance for residents regardless of what part of Peterborough they live in,” Miller said. “Right now, it is very inconsistent. It needs to be more equitable for both sides of the street; right now, we have neighbors who have completely different requirements about what they can build.”
Miller said the Planning Board has been “trying to chip away at” older, confusing, and inconsistent ordinances in the town’s books, including rules that may no longer comply with state law.
“For people who don’t read a lot of zoning, it can be very confusing,” she said. “There is a longstanding sense on the board that there are a lot of both little and big things that need to be updated. The board looked at this amendment and realized it can be made even clearer, and they brought it down to four words.”
Miller said her department is working to create visual models of the proposed changes to share with voters.
“It is hard for most people to picture what 5,000 square feet per unit looks like. For most people, that is just numbers,” Miller said. “What we will do before the hearing is find some examples of dwellings that already meet the proposed ordinance and create some 2-D or 3-D renderings of exactly what these dwellings would look like. We’ll show what a duplex on 5,000 square feet actually looks like.”
The public will be invited to discuss and give feedback on the proposed change at a January meeting of the Planning Board.
For more information about the Planning Board, go to: www.peterboroughnh.gov/government/boards_and_committees/planning_board.