Dover housing development at former McIntosh College to include 78 truly affordable units

DOVER — A plan to convert the former McIntosh College site into a large housing development will now include more affordable housing than originally approved by the city two years ago.

The Dover Planning Board unanimously approved a site plan from the property owner on Tuesday, proposing 78 units of the 158-apartment McIntosh Commons project be leased as affordable housing over four new multi-family buildings. In January 2022, the city Planning Board gave the go ahead for the 158-unit site to have 56 apartments be leased as affordable housing, in addition to approving a one-story clubhouse building and 278 parking spaces at the development.

Baker Properties, a real estate investment, development and management company in Portsmouth, has owned the 23 Cataract Avenue property since 2018. Todd Baker, founder and president of the company, reported this week that his firm is partnering with New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority on a tax credit project to increase the number of affordable units offered at the complex.

The units will be rented out using New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority’s area median income guidelines, which Baker said results in less expensive apartments for tenants compared to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s income limits.

If the affordable units were available today, a one-bedroom apartment at McIntosh Commons would cost $1,476 per month, while a two-bedroom unit would be priced at $1,771 a month and the monthly cost for a three-bedroom unit would be $2,046, according to Baker.

“Those units will actually be rented at a lower price than the Dover standard,” he told the Planning Board Tuesday night. “They’ll meet the New Hampshire Housing standard, which is 60% of the adjusted median income, which is typically a little bit lower, maybe 10% lower, than the (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) fair market rents.”

Baker cited the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2024 fair market rents for the Portsmouth-Rochester region. Those rent limits call for one-bedroom units to cost $1,582 a month, $2,003 a month for two-bedroom units and $2,557 per month for three-bedroom units.

“So (the McIntosh Commons units would be) 7% lower for the one-bedrooms, 13% lower for the two-bedrooms, 25% lower for the three-bedrooms,” he said.

Among the affordable units are 26 one-bedroom apartments, 44 two-bedroom apartments and 8 three-bedroom apartments. All the two- and three-bedroom units have two bathrooms, and each affordable unit also comes with its own washer and dryer units, per plans filed with the city.

The entire project will be conducted in two phases, the first of which would be to build the two buildings composed entirely of affordable apartments. Those two buildings are closest to the Spaulding Turnpike on the site plan.

The project was stalled due to elevated costs of supplies, though the postponement of the groundbreaking led to the collaboration between Baker Properties and the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority.

“We found out that a lot of our costs had just really skyrocketed at the end of COVID,” Baker said. “We went back to the drawing board. We started working with New Hampshire Housing on a tax credit project. That’s what we’re looking at today.”

“We desperately need these homes in our community,” he said of the affordable housing component.

Baker’s revised proposal also sought approval on several other changes to the site plan. His proposal states that a playground has been added to the plan, while all roof decks and balconies have been removed from the plan. The original outline for brick siding on the apartment buildings was later deemed to cost almost $1 million across the whole development, so Baker Properties switched to a Hardie panel design.

“We tried to keep as many of the important aspects, in my opinion, but we had to cut down on a lot of expenses,” Baker said.

The Dover Planning Board additionally approved the other edits to the site plan on Wednesday.

City Council member Fergus Cullen is the body’s representative on the Planning Board.

“(I’m) really glad to see it, because this project has been one of the ones that the lack of progress (on) has been really frustrating. I’m not blaming you. I understand that the economic circumstances have made it really challenging,” he said to Baker. “But this and a couple other pretty high-profile, high-visibility projects in town not breaking ground has been frustrating, because we need those housing units yesterday. I’m really glad to hear that it looks like things are moving forward again.”

McIntosh College shuttered in 2009.