FOCUS - Friends of Concord / United South End

New Hampshire Magazine - TRULY GREAT NEIGHBORHOODS

South End Recognized as one of NH's Special Residential Areas

THE SOUTH END – CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE – SPRING 2003
Development, Change, Traffic Growth and Conflicts

Concord is a city of neighborhoods. Each has its elementary school and a local park. Identification with a neighborhood is common. The South End of Concord is one of the city neighborhoods. Resi-dent involvement in its activities and issues is strong. In 2002, the South End was recognized by New Hampshire magazine as one of New Hampshire’s special residential areas - a “truly great neighborhood”.
New Hampshire Magazine
March 2002
Truly Great Neighborhoods

Rick Broussard
“As the world grows bigger and faster, people are finding the comforts and the sense of control of a simpler time by choosing, and getting involved in, the smallest and most casual unit of American gov-ernance: the neighborhood.”
“Homebuyers may pick a community in which to live based on tax rates, city services, and length of commute, but the most important decision will always be based on the most local of concerns — “What’s it like on the street where we will live?”
“South End, Concord
But even a diverse collection of residential pockets like the South Concord neighborhood can unite around a cause, as evidenced in the recent rallying of dozens of individuals and disparate neighbor as-sociations to oppose a plan by the Richmond Company developers to build a retail center on some des-titute land that abutted an all-but-forgotten marsh.
Chris Kane, a land conservationist for the Society for the Protection of N.H. Forests and his wife Eve Oyer live in a 1912 New Englander on a side street, well out of reach of the immediate impact of the proposed development, but he became a key organizer in the effort to defeat it. Kane says it wasn’t hard to find support, even among newcomers. “The fondness people have for this neighborhood is amazing. People who have moved here from somewhere else say ‘I know bad neighborhoods and this is a great one. Don’t screw it up.’”
Kane is happy to recite the litany of virtues of his home turf. The nearby presence of both Conant Ele-mentary and Rundlett Middle School has allowed his kids to walk to classes. Kids’ concerts and back-to-school nights are so well attended that it’s hard to find a parking place or a seat in the gym. Nearby Rollins Park has ball fields and a recently renovated swimming pool, plus plenty of room for picnics and Frisbee tossing. And, Kane notes, it’s a historic neighborhood, developed about 75 years ago. “You don’t have to worry about what’s going in across the street because it’s already there,” says Kane. A five-minute walk and you’re in semi-country, with the Audubon Society trails nearby and a system of gullies and green space that invites plenty of wildlife, including a healthy flock of wild turkeys, to co-habit with the human denizens.”




Development of the South End Neighborhood


Two hundred years ago, reference to a “South End” of Concord meant the area where the State House is now located. Subsequent development of the Abbott-Downing coach works, south of Perley Street, and of railroad shops, between Hall and South Main Streets, led to new streets and housing further south and city development continued to move in that direction. By 1900 there was a new residential section of Concord south of West Street. Rollins Park had been established as an important element – a recreation area and gathering place. After World War II growth and expansion led to conversion of farmland west of South Street. A new school complex of Conant and Rundlett Schools provided a focal point for families who moved to new housing in the area. By the 1960’s this South End area had grown. Its residents iden-tified themselves as part of a South End, or Ward 7, neighborhood. In 1963, the City Planning Board de-fined the South End as a neighborhood area lying south of Clinton and West Streets and further de-scribed as follows:


“Developing Neighborhood - South End”

“The South End is Concord’s fastest growing in-town neighborhood. It is bounded on the north by Clinton and West Streets, on the east by Water Street, and the Everett Turnpike, on the south by the Con-cord-Bow town line, and on the west by the top of the embankment on the easterly side of the Turkey River. Approximately one quarter of this area, its westerly and southwesterly portion, is open space suitable for residential development. Broadway and South Street are major arterial streets that bisect the main residential portion of the neighborhood in north-south directions. The latter is also the principal highway connecting Con-cord and the central residential section of neighboring Bow.”

“The railroad and the adjoining extensive railroad shop area, now converted to other industrial use, also bisects the neighborhood in a north-south direction isolating a small residential section of about sixty homes, known locally as the Hall Street area, located in a “pocket” on the easterly side of the railroad and westerly of the turnpike. This area is not considered a separate neighborhood in this report because of its lim-ited area and because …the City of Concord anticipates ultimate conversion to commercial use, a trend al-ready in progress...”

“Housing in the South End is relatively new, well-maintained on medium size lots. Only in the areas served by a portion of South Main Street, South State Street and Hall Street are residences generally more than fifty years old. In the developing portions of the neighborhood, residential development is uniformly of the single family type conforming to zoning requirements.”

“Neighborhood amenities included a large primary school, a major park, a playground (in the Hall Street area), a ward house used as a community center, a large neighborhood shopping center …(McKee Square)…and full municipal and private utilities capable of orderly expansion into the undeveloped sections of the area. The neighborhood is also the site of the new Rundeltt Junior High School and is immediately ad-jacent to the Memorial Athletic Field situated on South Fruit Street.”
Neighborhood Analyses
City of Concord
New Hampshire
City Planning Board - March 1963


The residents of the neighborhood met at school sessions, and at youth athletics. They became involved in City government issues during revision of the city zoning ordinance in the late 1960’s and during zon-ing and development controversies over the next two decades.

Neighborhood residents combined their voices again in recent years to deal with traffic on the so-called College Streets. And, as noted in the New Hampshire magazine article, a proposed shopping mall at the former B&M railroad shops created awareness of how the neighborhood could be altered by traffic to a commercial complex. Traffic forecasts associated with the mall alarmed many residents. Prospects of losing access to the South End marsh, along with prospective loss of historic buildings, produced a coali-tion of residents from the South End and other parts of Concord to oppose the proposal.

Residents also turned out to take part in the recent “visioning” project, the 20/20 initiative that was held from 1999 to 2001.

The 20/20 Vision represented feelings of many South End residents and was met with enthusiasm.

The Vision is the belief that Concord can grow and still maintain its attractive personal scale, if growth is focused around village centers and downtown.
The Vision is a belief that built and natural spaces may be—and should be—closely integrated but that the edges between them should remain clear, providing a welcome visual contrast and easy accessibility to both types of space. The village concept accomplishes this, bringing together resi-dential, commercial, and green space at a walkable scale.
The Vision is the idea that Concord's growth should be managed by keeping the 5 Vision Principles balanced, over time and across the city. It is the belief that we can enhance our current living, working, and playing spaces in ways that provide for economic vitality and inevitable growth, without sacrificing our high quality of life or rational transportation.

Involvement in this community initiative enabled residents to understand pressures on the South End re-sulting from added through traffic. It provided insight in methods that might alleviate major increases in traffic that could occur as a result of such developments as the proposed mall at the RR yard.

Participation in the 20/20 Vision project, and in the effort to bring about reconsideration of the proposed Richmond Company proposed mall, enabled residents of the neighborhood to learn more about traffic control in residential areas.




Traffic Calming & Walkability

—South End Walkabout:

In June 2002, we (2020) invited national walkability expert Dan Burden to make traffic calming recommendations for McKee Square, the heart of the South End village. Dan led about 40 resi-dents, business owners, City Councilors, and City staff on a walkabout that included "the longest crosswalk in the world," a human curb to dramatically narrow the road, and explanations of "traffic calming" measures that slow traffic speed but improve overall travel time.
Focus groups of local residents, their kids, and business people from McKee Square contributed their experiences and insights to Dan's analysis. That evening, Dan shared his ideas & recommen-dations with about 50 people: raised islands and wider curb bump-outs at selected pedestrian crossing areas (for example, on Broadway near Rollins Park) and a series of 3 roundabouts for McKee Square itself.
Also:
The "safe kids to school" project looks at bike and pedestrian safety hazards around Rumford and Conant elementary schools and Rundlett Middle School. A national leader in bike and pedestrian safety, Alta Transportation Consultants has collected local data and resident insights into the situa-tion. They are recommending improvements to our infrastructure and to our behavior as drivers, parents, and bicyclists or

These experiences made it important to maintain a voice in City affairs and to find ways to confront grow-ing traffic volumes and consequent conflicts with residential life of the neighborhood.

In summary:

• South End neighborhood identification strengthened after World War II – largely due to a new school complex
• Neighborhood involvement came as a response to zoning and development issues
• In recent years, resident activity confronted traffic on the “College Streets”
• Neighborhood residents joined other Concord citizens in participation in the 20/20 Vision Initia-tive. The principles of the Vision seemed sound for the South End and insights were gained into means of traffic control.
• The Richmond controversy brought neighbors together, produced collaborations and fund raising to enable opposition to a commercial complex that would negatively affect the South End
• Traffic projections from the proposed Richmond complex alarmed residents of the South End
• Traffic calming proposals for the adjacent Rumford School area provided further insight in desir-able approaches for the South End
• Residents met to form FOCUS
• FOCUS organizes a neighborhood workshop to learn about and advocate traffic calming to deal with growing congestion and pedestrian conflicts in the South End