An exurban town sees the benefits of walkability

A comparison between continuing current development and changing course in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Source: Londonderry Comprehensive Master Plan, Town Planning & Urban Design Collaborative.

What if a municipality could preserve more open space, add more jobs, build a stronger tax base, and accommodate more population growth all at the same time? The residents of Londonderry, New Hampshire, chose that option over business-as-usual growth in the next two decades.

In order to do that, the town of 24,000 about 45 miles northwest of Boston had to overhaul its land-use policies — not an easy task. In 2013, the town adopted a new comprehensive plan that called for compact, mixed-use building on corridors and in the form of villages. Recently, the town approved the 635-acre Woodmont Commons — which will create a mixed-use town center with major employment and hotels near a new interchange of I-93, which cuts through the town.

The plans in Londonderry offer a new model for construction in New England, which has a lot of New Urbanism in cities, but few walkable places in the outer suburbs that continue to sprawl at a slow but steady pace. 

For two and a half centuries, Londonderry was entirely rural. Starting in the 1970s, it has transformed into a mix of residential subdivisions and suburban retail and office developments. A little over a third of the town remains undeveloped. In order to preserve most of that area as open space, the town had to shift its development patterns. The town has no walkable settlements at this time. 

In the Trend Development Scenario above, more land (blue), is developed in a suburban pattern and less land is preserved as open space than in the Villages & Corridors Scenario, below. Source: Londonderry Comprehensive Master Plan, Town Planning & Urban Design Collaborative.

Demographics may have tipped the political balance. Londonderry is becoming an older municipality with fewer families that have school-aged children and fewer young adults with potential to start families. Only 13.2 percent of the population is from age 20 to 34, compared to the US average of 20.6 percent. “Unless they are living with their parents, young adults cannot afford to live in Londonderry. And many of them don’t want to live in suburbia,”  notes planner Terry Shook of Shook Kelley architects and urban designers, the planner for Woodmont.  

The town lacks walkable urban places, with of density of culture and activities, that Millennials seek. Sidewalks and bicycles lanes are virtually nonexistent, and so is mass transit — with the exception of a single local shuttle bus and commuter buses on I-93.

The quality of the schools in Londonderry is excellent and that has been a major driver of growth in the last four decades. Fewer families with school-aged children threatens support for schools. Dwindling educational investment would be a real concern for the town. Finding a way to bring jobs and attract young adults and families are incentives to build a few walkable urban places among the town’s 42 square miles.

Woodmont Commons, nearly a square mile, is one of the largest undeveloped pieces of land. It represents about 6.5 percent of the town’s buildable land. Straddling the new Interstate interchange, the site is key because of the potential for a major mixed-use employment center that could provide a focal point for the town.

Big deal for region

All in all, the town is taking a bold new direction. “This is a big deal for New England, one of the largest rezonings in a long time,” Shook says.

The developer is Michael Kettenbach of Pillsbury Realty, who had hired Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ) in 2010 to conduct a planning charrette. The comprehensive plan by Town Planning & Urban Design Collaborative was completed in 2012, making walkable, mixed-use construction the town's focal point. 

After the charrette, Kettenbach attended a retail course at Harvard University taught by Shook and Robert Gibbs. Shook Kelley, as part of a team of planners that included Gibbs, The Cecil Group, and Rick Chellman extended the DPZ plan to focus upon the realities of retail development and mixed-use districts.

The town center is planned for the east side of I-93, which is New Hampshire’s primary north-south highway.

One option for development of Woodmont. Source: Shook Kelley.

The plan includes up to 1,430 housing units of various types. It calls for 882,500 square feet of retail, 250,000 square feet of medical space, 700,000 square feet of office, and up to three hotels with a maximum of 550 rooms. The code allows flexibility with the retail, but still stipulates good urbanism, Shook says. 

“This plan focuses on the rules. They are robust and are in alignment with form-based ideas. But they can respond to market data,” Shook says.

It was a good collaboration between the town and developer, Shook says. “To get something this large and intricate through in New England is a good sign. There are developers out there willing to embrace form-based codes that create financial and community value.” 

The town center includes a buffer of 50 feet around the entire perimeter, which will limit the external connectivity. About a quarter of the site will remain in open space. 

The municipalities of New England might be inspired by what Londonderry is doing — more so than developers, says Tom Goodwin, a principal with Shook Kelley. Development is often built at a smaller scale in this part of the US, he notes, but it adds up to sprawl just the same. Londonderry’s new comprehensive master plan sets a different pattern.

The “villages and corridors” growth idea of the comprehensive plan allows preservation of much more open space. At build-out, 39 percent of the town would be preserved as open space under the new plan. Without the new plan, only 28 percent of the town would have been preserved as open space. Yet the build-out population would be higher in the villages and corridors scenario — by more than 7,000 people. The new plan allows employment to double — 55,000 versus 27,500 under the current scenario, allowing more families to work near to where they live. The tax base would benefit from the additional jobs and mixed-use development.

“We’re starting to come out of this terrible recession,” Shook says, “and the big question is whether conventional suburban development will remain the default model. I’m saying no. There are communities and developers that see the value of placemaking and are willing to go through an involved process. They did it in Londonderry. The ones that are willing to do this reap the benefit.”

Robert Steuteville is editor and executive director of Better! Cities & Towns. 

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