Section 4 — Response/Adherence to April 22, 2021 Letter to Nashua Zoning Board from
Nashua Director of Economic Development
On the day of our April 22, 2021 hearing with the Zoning Board for the previously requested
variance, a letter was received from the Nashua Director of Economic Development. This
section of the report is to respond to the relevant portions of that letter, as it pertains to this site
and the current by-laws and requirements of the City. We hope that these responses continue to
show our desire to work with the City as we have since starting development within Gateway
Hills almost 10 years ago. The letter was dated April 22. 2021 to the Nashua Community
Development Office from Nashua Director of Economic Development Tim Cummings. That
letter is included in Appendix C.
In that letter, it was stated that this overall tract of land is “one of the last few tracts of large
land areas available to attract a large number of jobs and be an economic engine for the
southern New Hampshire region.” It is clear, in this request for a zoning change, that minimal
impact is occurring to the PI district. Further, the Fiscal Impact Analysis, which was discussed
in Section 3, states that the net POSITIVE fiscal impact to the City resulting from development
based on this zoning change will be over $800,000 per year, plus building permit fees and a one-
time School Impact Fee associated with any residential project that is proposed. In short, there is
more than an ample amount of land remaining to develop in accordance with the PI district,
while providing housing that will generate a very large positive fiscal impact to the City.
The April 22, 2021 letter also states, in part, that the previous variance request would result in
impacts “so severe and the community will not have had an opportunity to properly assess
them”. In response to this particular statement, we have had multiple neighborhood meetings, at
which, the concerns were traffic and school impact. The Fiscal Impact Analysis, contained in
Section 3, above, includes statistics on school impact, as well as impact to Police and Fire
Departments, among other things. Neither the Police nor Fire Department had any issue with an
additional residential development being constructed in the area shown to be re-zoned. In
addition, the School Superintendent stated very clearly that there would be no adverse impact to
the school system, including the Bicentennial School, which was the school of concern with the
neighborhood. In regard to traffic, included in this section, for reference, is a table prepared by
our traffic engineer, VHB, which clearly shows the reduction in traffic at peak hours into and out
of the site. For clarification, currently, traffic is more prevalent coming info the site in the
morning and /eaving the site in the afternoon. With the construction of apartment/townhouse
housing, in the morning peak hour there will be 215 LESS vehicle trips INTO the site and 30
vehicle trips EXITING the site compared to the previously proposed 240,000 sf Research and
