NH communities are starting to ease zoning laws to allow for greater density

Maggie Randolph, who owns Harmony Homes Assisted Living Center in Durham with her husband, John, talks about the Cottages at Back River Road, a residential development in Dover that features 44 cottages on property originally zoned for nine homes. The Randolphs developed the property in part to provide affordable housing for their employees. (Kim Casey/Saint Anselm College)

This year has seen the fewest number of homes sold in the Granite State since 2011, the NH Union Leader reported last week, with an estimated 11,900 deals to be closed by the end of December. But instead of dwelling on that figure, organizations and municipal leaders are thinking about strategies for housing developments and legislative successes.

They shared their progress Dec. 8 at the sixth annual Signs of Hope: Housing We Need Roundtable Forum at Saint Anselm College’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics.

The biggest win, according to Noah Hodgetts, a principal planner with the NH Department of Business and Economic Affairs?

“While there is much work to be done, public sentiment is shifting towards support for municipalities to enact housing-friendly zoning changes,” Hodgetts said in concluding a report from the 2023

NH Zoning Atlas, a database and online mapping project to track land-use regulations affecting homebuilding across the state.

In a survey of 646 registered NH voters conducted by Saint Anselm College in June to gauge opinions on affordable housing, 60% favored municipalities changing land-use regulations to allow for increased housing construction.

That’s up from 52% last year, and 28.7% in 2020.

Hodgetts presented a year in review of towns and cities turning the tide across the state — Keene reduced the minimum lot size of its low-density rural district from 5 to 2 acres. In Berlin, manufactured housing is now permitted for any residential lot, regardless of which district the property is located in.

In Manchester, the city zoning ordinance was amended to increase the allowed size of accessory dwelling units and lower the minimum parking space requirements for such housing, among other moves.

ADUs are defined by a 2017 state statute as residential living units within or attached to a single-family dwelling, providing independent living for one or more people.

Town and city officials like Eliza Grant, a member of Conway’s planning board, took center stage to give a personal overview of housing efforts in their areas in a “rapid-fire” success stories segment. Grant’s story was of the Bluebird Project, a program to rehabilitate historic homes in the Mount Washington Valley, beginning with an 1866-era Conway home that was converted to a multifamily residence for five families.

Max Latona, executive director of the Center for Ethics in Society at Saint Anslem College, addresses the group at the 6th Annual Housing We Need Forum on Dec. 8 at the New Hampshire Institute for Politics. (Kim Casey/Saint Anselm College)

“The home fell into disrepair in recent years, and at the time it was purchased in the summer of 2022, it was boarded up, had water damage and had been partly gutted already,” Grant said. “We color-matched the home and repainted it the same color, as part of our renovation we preserved the original brick fireplace, we preserved the wooden beams in the ceiling that can be seen on the inside, we refurbished the original 1800s wide-plank flooring … and it was completed in October, just a little over a year from the point we purchased it.”

Meanwhile, in Manchester, more housing supply is coming. Jeff Belanger, the city’s director of planning and community development, touted approximately 800 new ADUs under active construction including single-family homes, townhomes and apartments — “far greater than any year in recent memory,” he said. Of those is a 250-unit apartment structure being built downtown.

The count doesn’t include renovation work to existing residences, which Belanger noted is also occurring citywide.

Ben Frost, chief legal officer and deputy executive director for the NH Housing Finance Authority, told forum attendees it’s thanks to “signs of hope” from the NH Legislature that the gears are in motion in the past few years to better accommodate New Hampshire’s growing population. Those date back to 2008’s Workforce Housing Law, and more recently include the creation of the state’s housing appeals board in 2019 and the NH Housing Toolbox in 2022.

Most significantly, Frost noted, lawmakers in Concord have twice allocated one-time appropriations of $25 million to NH Housing’s Affordable Housing Fund, in 2019 and this year — a budget year he called a “miracle budget.”

“I predicted the Legislature would not be able to timely adopt a budget,” he said. “(It included) a $50-plus million budget for housing and homeless services for the Department of Health and Human Services, and the establishment of the Housing Champions designation program, a voluntary program … for the state to recognize (municipalities’ housing work) and give them access to discretionary funds.”

Looking ahead, NH Housing Director Elissa Margolin says the 2024 legislative year is bringing at least 60 bills involving housing and residential policy.

“Even in an off-budget year, there is room to talk about the need for capital that flows and creates incentives for developers to build more affordably and provides below-market-rate opportunities, so those cost savings can be passed to tenants,” she said.