PORTSMOUTH — A proposal to redevelop the Christ Episcopal Church off Lafayette Road into a multi-faceted site featuring affordable housing, a renovated day care and a new location for Haven won praise Thursday night.
The project is being developed by the Portsmouth Housing Authority, and it's planned to feature 44 affordable housing units in a new building on the church’s 3.4-acre property on Route 1 (1035 Lafayette Road).
Haven — which supports survivors of domestic and sexual abuse — will have new headquarters in the former church building. The space will also include a “seven-unit transitional housing” space on site, according to documents filed with the city and comments at Thursday night’s Planning Board meeting from people representing the Portsmouth Housing Authority.
The redevelopment project will also include a revamped worship space for church parishioners, a renovated Little Blessings Child Care Center and the preservation of the African Burying Ground at Langdon Farm on the property.
Planning Board member William Bowen said “this is a great project with great organizations coming together, it’s really wonderful to see.”
Board member Joseph Almeida echoed those comments, praising a “joint venture between all the parties.”
City Councilor Elizabeth Moreau, who also serves on the board, said she loves the redevelopment project.
“I’ve been so excited to talk about this,” she said during Thursday night’s meeting in City Council chambers.
Questions about tenants for new housing
Board members did pose some questions to project organizers.
Bowen asked, “Who will be living here?”
“One of the idiosyncrasies of Portsmouth is that almost 90% of the people who work here, don’t’ live here, and therefore there’s a question when you’re building housing, managing housing, through Portsmouth Housing Authority or others, who the tenants of that housing are going to be,” he said. “Whether it’s going to be Portsmouth residents, or whether this is people from Somersworth who’d rather not commute.”
Craig Welch, PHA’s longtime executive director, replied that “it could be a combination of both.”
He explained that in terms of people on the waiting list to get into PHA housing, “we do provide a preference for people who live in Portsmouth, and for people who work in Portsmouth.”
But he added “that’s really highly regulated in terms of Fair Housing Law, about how exclusive we can be to a certain community.”
Could it be bigger?
After praising the project, Almeida asked, “What’s in the way of this being twice the size it is? What’s in the way of this being bigger and bolder. Can it be bigger, are we holding back for any reason?” he added.
Welch said he didn’t think so, noting that a lot of work has gone into “thinking through how to accommodate these four different uses on the same site. We think it’s the best plan to respect the African slave burial ground at Langdon Farm,” he said. “That is a very significant historical resource and that’s why we’ve done a lot of ground penetrating radar study and have archaeological historians who are part of the project and working with the Black Heritage Trail.”
Welch pointed out the day care is licensed for 71 children and “parking is always a thing. There’s not a lot of opportunity for overflow parking."
An amazing place to live
The property is “surrounded on three sides by a 182-acre conservation land (the Urban Forestry Center), which is an amazing amenity. It’s going to be an amazing place to live,” Welch said. “We think it’s a nice scale project to be able to do what Haven wants to do for a new headquarters, as well as 71 child care spots.”
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The PHA hopes to break ground on the project in the first or second quarter of 2025, Welch said.
And then “place the building in service in the middle of 2026,” he said.
PHA representatives appeared at the board meeting for their Preliminary Conceptual Consultation on the project.
That phase, according to city Planning Manager Peter Stith, “provides the Planning Board with an opportunity to review the outlines of a proposed project before it gets to detailed design (and before the applicant refines the plan as a result of review by the Technical Advisory Committee and public comment at TAC hearings).”
“In order to maximize the value of this phase, board members are encouraged to engage in dialogue with the proponent to offer suggestions and to raise any concerns so that they may be addressed in a formal application,” he said.
Patrick Crimmins, an engineer and senior project manager with Tighe & Bond, represented PHA at the meeting.
The project came about after “the church itself determined they have too much space on the site and therefore are looking for opportunities for its best use,” Crimmins said.
The project “will be a benefit to Portsmouth,” he said.
Project organizers also plan to have a pedestrian connection to the Urban Forestry Center and a COAST bus stop on site, Crimmins said.
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