By CHRIS FROST
Eagle Times News Editor
CLAREMONT N.H. — Tenants at a Central Street apartment building will have to leave their home after the city’s Zoning Board has denied a retroactive variance to allow a 13th dwelling unit at 44-50 Central Street.
Board members found the application did not meet any of the board’s five criteria, does not serve in the public’s best interest, or meets the spirit of the ordinance. The application also doesn’t show that substantial justice is done. The surrounding properties will be diminished and enforcing the ordinance provisions would result in unnecessary hardship.
“We are in a housing crunch, but that doesn’t mean we can bend our codes to meet that,” Chair Todd Russel said. “Maybe we need to change that. I know it’s being worked on with multi-family and changing over some multi-families, but the property is using three times more than it should for that size property for square footage.”
Attorney Meagan Carrier from Sheehan, Phinney, Bass & Green spoke on behalf of applicant Claremont Fund LLC, which purchased the three-structure, 13-unit property in 2022.
“All of the structures were built prior to the adoption of the zoning ordinance,” she said. “The applicant believes that one previously larger unit in the building that features four units may have split at some point into two units, but they’re not entirely sure.”
She said the property contains 15,256 square feet of space.
“The property is lawfully non-conforming for 12 of the 13 units,” she said. “Granting the variance will not be contrary to the public interest, and the New Hampshire Supreme Court has said for a variance to be contrary to the public interest, it has to alter the essential character of the neighborhood or threaten the public health, safety, or welfare.”
Carrier said a variance would not alter the neighborhood’s essential character because they’re not proposing any change to the property’s current use.
“We’re proposing to maintain the status quo,” she said. “The 13th unit already exists, and it has for many years. A decision to deny (the variance) would impact the health, safety and welfare by preventing the use of an existing housing unit at a point where there is an extremely high demand for housing.”
She argued granting the variance preserves the ordinance’s spirit and intent is to minimize the impact of potentially incompatible uses.
“This use is not incompatible and has been in use for many years, and the applicant is proposing no change,” she said. “I know there was mention of concerns regarding parking, and to our knowledge, there have never been any complaints or issues regarding the use of this unit for parking or anything.”
While no one is harmed by granting the variance, she said, not granting the variance means the current residents will need to be evicted.
“Future renters will not have this housing unit as an option,” she said.
Claremont Fund Manager Zander Kempf said the property’s 13th unit is occupied.
“We don’t know what the 13th unit is because it’s just a four-unit building,” he said. “All four units are occupied; some residents have been there for over 10 years. That’s the people we’d be asked to evict.”
Board Member Michael Lemieux said he’s struggling with the variance.
“You already have two units on this postage-stamp-sized lot,” he said. “The spirit of the ordinance is for density, and this is very dense for the area.”
“It’s so overcrowded, so unsafe, and so hard to move around in that parking lot,” Russel said. “To me, public safety and public interest isn’t about one tenant, and it’s not about the financial loss of losing a rental unit. It’s more about keeping everybody safe in the area.”
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