Image courtesy of Warrenstreet

Keene-based nonprofit affordable housing developer Southwestern Community Services is proposing to build 174 rental units on a landlocked parcel in Claremont.

The 75-acre, mostly wooded land is located behind a Hanaford supermarket just east of downtown Claremont. Documents included in the SCS application to the Claremont Zoning Board show the development taking access from both Dartmouth and 1st streets, but indicate the site is served by municipal water and sewer.

The project needs a variance and a special exception from the Zoning Board to build via a planned residential development structure, as the lot is currently zoned for agricultural uses. The project also needs site plan approval from the Claremont Planning Board. As of publication, the variance vote was scheduled for Sept. 8, along with a site walk by the Zoning Board.

In a letter to the Zoning Board, project attorney John L. Arnold, of Concord-based Orr & Reno, argued that the town’s existing single-family districts zoning districts would actually be more dense on paper than SCS’s plan, since most of the 75-acre parcel would stay undeveloped, as it’s heavily sloped. That also makes the project density similar to existing streets in the area.

“It is not an area that is particularly well-suited for low intensity rural use,” Arnold wrote of the site. “To the contrary, it is an ideal location for higher-intensity residential development, given the surrounding uses, proximity to Washington Street, and availability of public water and sewer service. This is an ideal location to further the City’s objective to provide more meaningful housing opportunities.”

A preliminary sketch plan filed along with the application shows a main street of 32 duplex units lining the project’s main street, with a sextet of small, 20- to 30-unit apartment buildings grouped around a parking lot and playground.