Legislature moves 15 housing bills in one day

, , ,

New Hampshire’s housing shortage, and the price spike that it created, has made housing the No. 1 problem facing the state, according to University of New Hampshire polling. Fixing the state’s housing shortage is such a priority for voters that a 2024 UNH poll found more than 1/3 of voters rating it as the top problem, with the No. 2 problem a full 29 points behind. In response, the state House of Representatives has created a standing Committee on Housing to deal with the issue. 

Forty-eight housing-related bills have been introduced to the House Housing Committee (22) and Senate Commerce Committee (26) this session. Nearly 1/3 of those bills were considered by the House and Senate on Thursday, March 20. 

Below is a brief summary of each of those 15 bills. Eight were placed on the consent calendar, which means they received unanimous votes out of committee. (One was pulled off the House consent calendar Thursday morning.) To give the reader a sense of how the committees prioritized each bill, we list them by their position on the calendars. We also include how each chamber voted on each bill.

Thursday’s action suggests that legislators have gotten the message that voters want action to increase the supply of housing, and they want it now. 

 

SENATE

Consent Calendar

  • Senate Bill 90, allowing high-density residential development on land zoned for commercial use. Re-referred to committee. 

SB 90 defines a “high density residential zone” as one that allows at least 20 residential units per acre, and it adds to RSA 674 the requirement that “municipalities shall allow high-density residential development on land zoned for commercial use, provided that adequate infrastructure, including roads, water, and sewage systems, shall be available or provided to support the development.” 

  • Senate Bill 170, relative to development and related requirements in cities, towns, and municipalities. Passed by voice vote. 

SB 170 incorporates multiple proposals into a single bill. It:

  1. Prohibits municipalities from mandating that occupants of housing units be related by blood or marriage;
  2. Prohibits cities, towns, municipalities, and counties with unincorporated places from mandating more stringent test-pitting requirements for septic systems and more stringent well-siting requirements than the Department of Environmental Services does;
  3. Prohibits municipalities from imposing maximum road lengths to impede development, provided that the proposed roadway or extension complies with the state fire code;
  4. Prohibits municipalities from capping the number of housing lots on dead-end streets; 
  5. Requires municipalities to permit utilities (including septic systems, wells, electric systems, drainage structures, and other utilities) to be placed in open spaces or perimeter buffers of subdivisions as applicable; provided that such open spaces or perimeter buffers are not wetlands or shoreland areas protected by RSA 483-B;
  6. Requires municipalities to stamp and accept changes to plans within three days, after an initial review, when requested by that city, town, or municipality, provided the developer has made the requested alterations based on the initial planning board review; 
  7. limits road frontage requirements and setbacks for lot lines to no more than 50 feet.
  • Senate Bill 173, relative to residential property subject to housing covenants under the low income housing tax credit program. Passed by voice vote.

Rent-restricted residential housing enrolled in the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program can be assessed under state law in one of two ways. It is either taxed at 10 percent of income generated by the property, or subject to the following formula:

“The assessed value shall be calculated using an income approach whereby the net operating income is divided by the overall capitalization rate and, except when the municipality has updated its assessment values to equate to market values, multiplying that value by the previous year’s equalization ratio.”

SB 173 eliminates the formula so that the simpler 10% tax will be used. Because it eliminates a complicated formula inconsistently applied by municipalities, it has the support of assessors, municipalities and developers. 

  • Senate Bill 175, relative to the use of covenants by municipalities. Re-referred to committee.

SB 175 would prohibit municipalities from “requiring or encouraging the establishment of covenants as a condition of any zoning or land use approval.” Existing covenants created by landowners or homeowners associations would be grandfathered. The Senate Commerce Committee concluded that the bill needed more work and recommended that it be sent back to committee.

  • Senate Bill 281, relative to property adjacent to Class VI roads. Passed by voice vote.

SB 281 allows homes on class VI roads if the property owner signs a waiver acknowledging that the road is not maintained and the municipality is not responsible for damages. Buildings on the property also must be insurable. A Class VI road is an unmaintained road.

  • Senate Bill 282, relative to stairway requirements in certain residential buildings. Passed by voice vote.

SB 282 allows multifamily buildings of up to six stories to be built with a single staircase, provided certain safety requirements are met.  Mandates for dual staircases increase building footprints and costs. Single staircase designs are common in most of the rest of the world, at heights considerably taller than six stories. 

  • Senate Bill 283, relative to the calculation of floor-area-ratios under local building ordinances. Passed by voice vote.

SB 283 exempts below-grade ares from the calculation of floor area ratios. Floor area ratios are the portion of floor area of a building relative to the size of the parcel of land. Municipalities use floor area ratios to limit how large a building can be relative to its lot size.

Regular Calendar

  • Senate Bill 84, relative to zoning procedures concerning residential housing. Passed 13-10. 

SB 84 caps minimum lot sizes at 2 acres in areas not served by water or sewer, 1.5 acres in areas served by water only, and half an acre in areas served by both water and sewer. 

  • Senate Bill 163, repealing the temporary moratoria and limitation on building permits and the approval of subdivisions and site plans. Passed by voice vote.

SB 163 repeals the portion of state law allowing municipalities to impose temporary moratoria on the issuing of building permits or on the approval of subdivisions and site plans.

  • Senate Bill 174, prohibiting planning boards from considering the number of bedrooms a given unit or development has during the hearing and approval process. Passed by voice vote.

SB 174 prohibits planning boards from favoring or disfavoring housing proposals based on the number of bedrooms per unit.

  • Senate Bill 284, relative to the required maximum number of residential parking spaces. Passed by voice vote.

SB 284 prohibits municipalities from requiring more than one parking space per housing unit, with one exception. Workforce housing developments with studio and one-bedroom units of fewer than 1,000 square feet can be required to have 1.5 parking spaces.

 

HOUSE

Regular Calendar

  • House Bill 351, requiring landlords to give tenants of at-will tenancies at least 60-days notice to evict. Tabled.

HB 351 would require landlords to give tenants who are on at-will leases at least 60 days notice before eviction. 

  • House Bill 558, creating a public county registry of the monthly rent charged by landlords for each owned unit and prohibiting landlords from using algorithms or software to determine rental rates. Voted inexpedient to legislate on voice vote.

HB 558 would require county registers of deeds to create an annual registry of rents charged in the county and prohibit landlords from using algorithms or software to determine rental rates.

  • House Bill 628, prohibiting landlords from discriminating against prospective tenants holding certain vouchers under the housing choice voucher program. Voted inexpedient to legislate on a 213-152 vote.

HB 628 requires landlords to rent to anyone enrolled in the Housing Choice Voucher Program (federal Section 8 vouchers).

  • House Bill 631, permitting residential building in commercial zoning. Passed 204-134.

HB 631 would allow multi-family housing on commercially zoned land, provided the infrastructure (such as water and sewer) is available.

Download this policy brief here: JBC Policy Brief 15 Housing Bills in One Day

/by

Legalizing residential uses in commercial zones can strengthen N.H. communities

, , ,

In many areas of New Hampshire it is literally illegal for shop owners, employees and customers to live in an apartment above or next to a business. Yet places that do allow such mixed uses are among the most vibrant and desired areas in the state, for both businesses and residents. 

As state and local officials consider ways to create more housing and improve the economic and social life of New Hampshire communities, legalizing residential housing in existing commercial zones offers an easy and harmless way to do both. 

Portsmouth regularly shows up on lists of New Hampshire’s and America’s most beautiful towns. In 2016, National Geographic speculated that it “might be America’s greatest small town.” It isn’t just the colonial architecture. It’s the vibrancy. In Portsmouth, living above or adjacent to shops, restaurants, taverns and coffee houses has been common for much of the community’s four centuries. 

Before the rise of automobiles and industrialization, towns and cities generally weren’t separated into residential and commercial areas. Almost everyone worked within walking distance of their homes, and many operated shops from their homes. Cities and towns as old as Portsmouth and Exeter offer a window into this pre-zoning past. And they  offer insights into the value of allowing residential development in commercial zones. 

No tourists, shoppers or diners come to Portsmouth—or any other town— to marvel at the residential subdivisions created by 20th century zoning ordinances. Strip malls in exclusively commercial zones attract shoppers who pop quickly in and out, but not tourists and residents seeking to experience the charm of an old New England town. People flock to mixed-use zones to enjoy a thriving community, a place brought alive by the mix of residential and commercial activity in one compact area. 

Municipal bans on residential uses in commercial zones outlawed the creation of new communities like those found in downtown Portsmouth or Exeter. Only by lifting those bans can New Hampshire towns and cities recreate these lost places. 

Instead of protecting homeowners from encroaching businesses, these bans “protect” businesses from encroaching residents. Yet this “protection” actually harms businesses, residents and communities. Ending these misguided municipal bans would provide much-needed infill housing while reinvigorating communities.

Property values

A major misconception commonly used in defense of banning residences in commercial zones is that the strict separation increases property values. The opposite is true. Commercial real estate professionals have recognized for years that commercial properties close to residential properties tend to be more valuable, not less.  

Residential properties also tend to command higher prices when located closer to economically active commercial areas. Contrary to popular belief, housing built near an economic activity center is significantly more valuable. (A 2022 study found a 26% price premium for housing built near activity centers in 2/3 of cities studied, and a 50% premium in a few high-growth cities.) 

As a general rule, mixing residential uses into commercial zones increases the value of both types of properties. These higher values are a result of higher demand. Many people want to live close to shops, restaurants, nightlife and other “third places” where they can build social and economic connections.

Safety

Half a century ago, author Jane Jacobs noticed that crime in U.S. cities seemed to be lower in neighborhoods that enjoyed more activity in public spaces. Her “eyes on the street” theory held that more people on the streets, or watching from shops and homes, deterred crime. 

This is a widely accepted view, though research is limited. But some researchers have found the theory to hold up under testing. 

A 2013 study of crime in Los Angeles found that “single-use commercially zoned blocks in Los Angeles have crime rates that are 45 percent higher than similar blocks that include residential uses.”

A 2017 study of zoning and crime in Chicago found that commercial areas with higher-density housing were associated with lower crime rates. “Zoning which allows for mixed use structures may be preferable to more restrictive rules that aim for solely residential or commercial use,” the author concluded.

Opposition to legalizing housing in commercial zones often comes from the assumption that new residential units will be high density developments aimed at low-income renters, and will therefore reduce property values and increase crime. On the contrary, because this type of housing is in high demand, it is typically not targeted at low-income renters. That doesn’t mean it will raise overall rents. Mid-range and higher-priced rentals attract people who leave lower-priced units, freeing those units for people with smaller budgets. This filtering effect is why the construction of additional housing units, even at the luxury end of the market, brings down overall rents over time. More supply lowers prices.

Community 

The American Planning Association recommends mixed-use zoning as a way of improving community health and vibrancy. “Mixed-use development provides a variety of environmental, economic, social, and health benefits that can align with existing community priorities, including increasing physical activity,” the association writes.

Far from harming communities, mixed-use development brings numerous benefits. Legalizing residential uses in commercial zones is a way to generate those benefits without imposing costs on existing residential neighborhoods. Because housing is being added to commercial areas, not vice versa, there are no concerns about bringing commercial activities into residential neighborhoods. 

When the Ioka Theater in downtown Exeter closed, it left a void on Water Street. This year, the renovated building is back to life as a mixed-use space anchored by eight condominiums. With demand for office and commercial space still down after the pandemic, the housing portion of the redevelopment was important. All but one of condos sold before the coffee house opened in December, according to the Union Leader. The restaurant and retail space were unfilled at the start of this year. Had the town not allowed housing above the shop and restaurant space, the redevelopment might never have happened. 

By giving property owners multiple streams of revenue, mixed-use zoning serves as a hedge against downturns in commercial and office markets. A building zoned exclusively commercial is at a higher risk of becoming completely vacant than one zoned for both commercial and residential uses. Vacant buildings bring down property values, increase crime rates and fracture communities. Mixed-use zones reduce the risk of building vacancies while bringing people closer together. 

Mixing residential uses into commercial zones also creates more walkable places where businesses and customers mutually benefit from their close proximity to each other. It can reduce traffic congestion, commute times and feelings of isolation.

Conclusion

The colonial downtowns that make Portsmouth and Exeter iconic New England towns were once common throughout New Hampshire. Downtown Concord and Manchester also represent attractive, popular mixed-use districts that developed before zoning separated residential and commercial activities. These are the kinds of vibrant community centers that zoning made it difficult to recreate elsewhere. 

A century after New Hampshire gave local governments the power to separate land by use, it’s clear that municipalities took that authority too far. A power created to keep industrial activities out of residential neighborhoods has been used to keep neighborhoods from popping up in commercial areas. That makes no sense.

There simply is no public health or safety justification for creating commercial-only zones. As long as adequate infrastructure exists to support housing, its inclusion in commercial areas harms no one while creating numerous benefits. 

The benefits of legalizing residential uses in commercial zones include strengthening property values, providing additional housing, increasing economic activity, lowering crime rates, creating a hedge against contractions in the commercial and office markets, and building stronger communities. These are all things elected officials say they want. If they really do, adding residential uses to commercial zones would help.

Download this policy brief here: JBC Policy Brief Residential in Commercial

/by

Business tax cuts did not reduce state aid to local governments

, , ,

Since New Hampshire began cutting business tax rates in 2015, state aid to municipalities and public school districts has fallen, according to a prominent political narrative. 

That narrative is false.

Aid to local governments and local school districts rose by by $214 million (19%) from Fiscal Year 2015 to Fiscal Year 2025, an October report from the Office of Legislative Budget Assistant shows.

A related false narrative asserts that if state aid to localities is up, that’s only because of federal COVID relief spending. 

This also is false. 

The $214 million increase in state aid consists entirely of state tax revenue. Federal COVID relief money and all other federal spending are separate. 

What about school districts? 

The state has increased adequate education grants and total state aid to public school districts since 2015. 

State adequate education aid rose by $139 million (15%).

Total state aid to public school districts rose by $148 million (15%). 

While state aid to public schools increased by 15%, public school enrollment fell by 16,373 students, or 9%. 

So although the total dollar increase might look relatively small, it is spread among fewer students, creating a larger per-pupil expenditure.

Looking only at state adequate education grants, the state government sent local public schools an average of $5,115 per pupil in 2015. That rose to an average of $6,469 per pupil in FY 2025 (the current school year), an increase of 26%.

Inflation over the last decade grew faster than the increase in state aid to local governments and school districts, eating away at the value of those increases. 

But the claim from tax cut opponents is not that the hundreds of millions of dollars in additional aid was consumed by bad federal policies that sent inflation soaring. The claim is that the state cut local aid in absolute terms because state revenues fell following the tax cuts. This is entirely untrue.

Not only did legislators increase local aid, those increases were funded by soaring business tax revenues, which have more than doubled since 2015. 

Local governments and public school districts received $214 million in additional state aid over the last decade, including a 26% increase in the per-pupil value of adequate education grants. If they raised property taxes during this time, the blame cannot be placed on state aid.

These increases do not include any of the $112 million in Local Fiscal Recovery Fund moneys distributed to towns, $994.5 million in American Rescue Plan and Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Funds allocated by the state, $486 million in ESSER funding for public schools, or other COVID relief funds sent directly from the federal government to cities. 

/by

Innovation means bulldozing places like Steeplegate Mall

, , ,

Steeplegate Mall in Concord is coming down. The city granted approval this month for the building’s demolition. 

Yes, the owners of a mostly vacant large building that has become a magnet for crime (181 police calls in the last two years) needed the government’s approval to take it down and replace it with infrastructure people will actually use, like homes and a Costco.

The mall’s been largely empty since 2022. The redevelopment proposal (mixed use, retail and residential) has been moving along relatively quickly, as these things go. There haven’t been the usual disruptive community meetings with protests and long delays to get multiple variances just to replace an eyesore with something the city actually needs and people actually want.

That’s because the city rezoned the mall property years ago. It sits in a Gateway Performance District, which allows multiple uses and is designed to attract development. That’s made all the difference.

The city loosened land use restrictions to encourage economic development, and guess what happened? Economic development. 

Concord officials anticipated that the land where a huge suburban shopping mall sat might one day be put to a different, better use if market conditions changed. Because they had that foresight, a mammoth commercial structure no longer in demand will be converted relatively easily into buildings that are in very high demand.

A lot of the news stories about the mall in the past two years have focused on what Concord is losing. An outdated movie theater, a pickleball club, a community theater. An NHPR story mused about what the evictions from the mall would mean for Concord’s arts scene. 

It takes a stupefying lack of imagination to see a defunct shopping mall and lament what is lost rather than celebrate the possibilities of its transformation. 

Humans, left to their own devices, will build. They’ll create vibrant communities in which entrepreneurs devise ingenious ways of making their fellow citizens happy. Unless government forbids it. 

Governments forbid behaviors for one reason. People would otherwise do the forbidden things.

Hurting people and taking people’s stuff ought to be forbidden. But building a residence beside (or on top of) a store? Building a tiny house on a half-acre lot? Placing your home 46 feet instead of 50 feet away from the curb? These are not behaviors that harm others. 

Yet governments all across New Hampshire ban perfectly reasonable property uses like these. Why? Because some people prefer them. Without a government prohibition, people would build the kinds of mixed-use residential and commercial properties the market demands. And that just can’t be allowed, even in the “live free or die” state.  

Tuscan Village in Salem was once a horse track. When Tuscan Village was proposed, it was illegal. Salem had to change its regulations to make it legal for an entrepreneur to turn an abandoned dog track into a beautiful mixed-use residential and retail village.  

If New Hampshire wants to live up to its motto, it must repeal or relax many of the regulations that make it illegal for entrepreneurs to unleash their creativity. Local governments have to stop worrying so much about preserving the past and let entrepreneurs imagine the future. Preservation has its place. But innovation does too. And right now too many of our development rules are focused on preservation at the expense of innovation.

/by

On housing, Granite Staters want more development, less gov’t interference

, , ,

On housing, a consensus has settled in among Granite State voters. It can be summarized in four main points:

  1. New Hampshire desperately needs more housing.
  2. Local governments should lift regulatory barriers to the construction of new housing.
  3. The state government should act to prompt local regulatory changes.
  4. Multifamily housing is acceptable in suburbs and rural areas.

The St. Anselm College Center for Ethics in Society has polled New Hampshire voters on housing since 2020. The 2024 poll, released this week, shows that voters’ views have solidified into a strongly pro-construction, anti-regulatory, pro multi-family majority. 

A supermajority (75%) agrees with the statement, “my community needs more affordable housing to be built.” 

Roughly 60% (59%-62%) welcome the construction of affordable housing in their own neighborhoods, the relaxation of local land use regulations to allow that construction, the building of multifamily housing in suburban and rural zones, and state intervention to make all of this happen. 

In the 2020 poll, just 28.7% agreed that local governments should relax their planning and zoning regulations to allow the construction of more housing. 

In the spring of 2021, the poll found a 10% increase, to 39%, of voters saying local governments should relax planning and zoning regulations. 

In the fall of 2021, the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy released our landmark study showing that local land use regulations were the primary cause of the state’s housing shortage.

The next year, the percentage of N.H. voters who agreed that local planning and zoning regulations should be relaxed to allow for more housing shot up to 52%. It now stands at 61%.

High-profile conversations about specific policy problems matter. By 2021, Granite Staters were becoming more receptive to the idea that local land use regulations were a problem. A push by the Bartlett Center and others to identify the root cause of the housing shortage and propose solutions helped more people understand the problem and demand the right fix, rather than continue to falsely blame developers or the market.

Today, a strong majority of voters understands the problem and demands that it be fixed. Yet local voters and boards have not gotten the message. 

A few recent examples:

“Hampton Falls rejects proposed 88-unit condo project on Route 1”

“Owner: McIntyre building still a parking lot due to Portsmouth zoning rules”

“Stratham select board sues town zoning board over 59-unit condo approval”

“Exeter 120-plus apartment project faces opposition”

“Portsmouth board rejects plan to raze 1900-era home for four new houses”

“Board nixes variance for North Newport senior housing project.”

New residential developments are being approved in New Hampshire. But boards continue to reject housing proposals simply because pre-existing regulations don’t allow the type of housing the market now demands. 

In the Hampton Falls and Stratham stories linked above, boards rejected variance requests because members didn’t want to contradict old, outdated rules.

In the Newport example, the rural zone doesn’t allow multifamily housing. Since the developer could conceivably propose a different use for the property than its highest, best, most in-demand use (multifamily housing), the board rejected the proposal. 

Though Granite Staters now say overwhelmingly that they welcome multi-family housing in suburban and rural zones, local boards continue to reject such proposals simply because old rules don’t allow them.

This discrepancy between voter and market demand on one side and inflexible regulations on the other cannot continue indefinitely.

The Center for Ethics in Society polling shows that on questions of housing, large majorities of New Hampshire voters are on the side of developers, not local regulators. And they want the state to act if local governments won’t. 

Voters say housing is the “most important problem facing New Hampshire,” the UNH Survey Center found last month. Thirty-six percent of voters named housing as the state’s top problem. In second place was education, with only 7% of voters naming it the top problem. 

In the most recent legislative session, the House Education Committee dealt with 156 bills. 

The number of bills referred to the Special Committee on Housing? Nine.

Housing beats education as the top concern of voters by 29 percentage points. But legislators, like local land use boards, are operating on outdated beliefs. They’ve yet to adapt to the changing voter preferences. 

But there’s an election this fall, and we’re already seeing candidates campaign on pro-housing agendas. 

Given the firmly solidified pro-housing position of most voters, hardened each month by news of rising home prices, and the slow pace of change at the local level, it would be political malpractice for lawmakers not to make significant regulatory reform a top priority next year.

For years, we’ve predicted exactly this development. The slow pace of change at the local level has voters turning to the state for solutions. So far, legislators have been reluctant to act. That won’t be the case much longer. The pressure to act is too great.

It’s a safe bet that we’ll see a significant increase in legislative proposals to address the housing shortage in 2025. People are tired of waiting for government to get out of the way and let developers solve the housing shortage government created in the first place. 

 

/by

Housing bills seek to restore some limited property rights while maintaining local control

, , ,

There’s a growing consensus that New Hampshire’s overly restrictive land-use regulations need to be addressed to reverse the state’s housing shortage. Whether changes should be made at the state or local level, though, remains a major point of contention.

State-level solutions generate reflexive opposition from people who view local land-use regulation as an entirely local issue. Yet some of this opposition, maybe most, is based on an important misconception.

Opponents of state action commonly assert that bills to address the housing shortage are an effort by legislators to take for themselves powers that belong at the local level. This is mistaken. 

Decisions about land use will continue to be made locally. Under many of the bills working their way through the Legislature this session, those decisions will be made by individuals at the local level rather than by local governments—boards and bureaucrats—or voters.

Changes in Manchester

Realizing the desperate need for housing, some local governments are changing their ordinances to allow more development. In Manchester, for example, several proposed amendments to the city’s zoning ordinance would represent small but important steps to relax land-use regulations in the Queen City. 

The amendments would permit four-unit housing to be built on lots currently zoned for three-unit housing, drop the required number of parking spaces for multifamily housing from 1.5 spaces per unit to one space per unit, and no longer require property owners to petition the city’s planning board for a conditional use permit before building accessory dwelling units (ADUs).

These steps are the beginning of a bigger set of reforms being studied in the city. Not every municipality is moving in this direction, though, prompting state lawmakers to intervene in limited but meaningful ways. 

But these interventions don’t amount to the creation of statewide zoning. They just return some decision-making authority to property owners, from whom it was taken in the first place.

Legislation to restore limited rights to property owners

Consider the following bills: allowing one ADU, attached or detached, by right and allowing up to two per lot under certain conditions (HB 1291), forbidding municipalities from banning manufactured housing (HB 1361), allowing the expansion of a single-family residence within an urban residential zone to no more than two residential units without review if it meets certain requirements (HB 1399), and preventing local zoning regulations from requiring more than one residential parking space per unit (HB 1400).

Yes, these would be state laws, albeit modest ones. No, they would not amount to a uniform state zoning code. They would restore some limited rights to property owners while retaining local authority to regulate in each of these areas.

Currently, if a property owner wants to add a second ADU or convert a single-family home into a duplex within an urban residential zoning district—even if the developments wouldn’t encroach on neighboring property, disturb anyone, or change the outward appearance of the property whatsoever—local ordinances can prohibit them from doing so. 

Contrary to popular belief, local governments do not hold that power by right. The power to regulate private property is, under New Hampshire’s Constitution, granted to local governments by the state. 

With each of the bills above, lawmakers are not proposing to impose a single uniform ordinance statewide. They are proposing to reduce the regulation of property in these very limited areas altogether, thus restoring a small measure of rights originally held by property owners. 

Manufactured housing—prefabricated homes that are transported to sites—is an easy, quick, and often inexpensive way to put more people into homes. Under HB 1361, municipalities can still regulate manufactured housing but not to the extent that it is effectively banned. 

Parking space requirements are a pernicious roadblock to creating more multifamily housing. In zoning districts that require 1.5 parking spaces per housing unit, that means every duplex, three-family, and four-family building needs enough land set aside for three, 4.5, and six spaces, respectively. Where municipalities require two parking spaces per housing unit, that means every duplex, three-family, and four-family building must have four, six, and eight spaces, respectively. 

Often these stringent requirements keep a lot of multifamily housing from being created, either through development or single-family expansions. By preventing local governments from requiring more than one space per residential unit, HB 1400 would restore to property owners the authority to decide whether a unit needs more than one parking space on site. 

Because these kinds of state proposals would supersede local ordinances, they rub some the wrong way. Local control has long been a very important principle in New Hampshire.

The state’s historical adherence to local control, however, shouldn’t justify unlimited local control. Local governments are still governments, and as a result, their ordinances can be fundamentally oppressive.  

At the same time, we shouldn’t always assume that the state government overruling some local ordinances automatically represents state overreach. In the case of these four bills, such actions seek to pull back the centralized planning powers of local governments and protect Granite Staters’ property rights. 

Isn’t that what governments are instituted to do, to secure our rights? If so, then private property rights are chief among them.

When you consider that these state laws would be superseding some of the most overly restrictive local regulations that limit property rights throughout the state, and that state lawmakers have only resorted to these very modest steps because of inaction on the part of municipalities, then such proposals look less like top-down state government control and more like state government doing the bare minimum to protect Granite Staters’ property rights and address the state’s housing shortage.



/by

Legislators vote to strengthen local tax caps, especially for school districts

, , ,

While crime stories, campus protests and political drama captured much of the media attention this week, a bill with tremendous potential consequences for taxpayers quietly passed the House on Thursday.

Senate Bill 383, which has passed both chambers in slightly different versions, would strengthen local tax caps and allow school district caps to be tied to enrollment. 

Under current state law, town and school district tax caps can apply to estimated taxes “as shown on the budget.” That excludes off-budget warrant articles that might also have a tax impact. SB 383 would cover the budget and “all other warrant articles with a tax impact.”

RSA 32:5-b II mandates that a town or district “tax cap shall be either a fixed dollar amount or a fixed percentage applied to the amount of local taxes raised by the town or district for the prior fiscal year…”

SB 383 authorizes voters to use “a multiplication factor” that would cap tax increases at the inflation rate times population growth. That’s been the general idea behind tax caps from the start. The bill lets towns use this more precise formula rather than a fixed amount or rate. Those fixed numbers were always basically a proxy for the multiplier anyway.

Perhaps most consequentially, SB 383 creates a new formula for school district tax caps. The school district formula would be a combination of inflation times enrollment, rather than municipal population growth. That’s an important change. School budgets can be the largest portion of local budgets and the largest driver of local spending and tax increases.

Our 2023 analysis of district school spending in New Hampshire found that there generally wasn’t a strong correlation between school enrollments and local school spending. New Hampshire public school districts lost 29,946 students from 2001-2019, but increased spending by an inflation-adjusted $937 million. School district budgets tend to grow faster than the inflation rate, and faster than all other areas of government spending, even when enrollment is falling, we found. 

In Manchester, for example, school district enrollment fell by 13% from 1995-2018. During those same years, city school district spending grew by a remarkable 68%. 

This year, the Manchester school district’s proposed budget was 7.9% higher than the 2020-21 school budget—after adjusting for inflation—though enrollment was 4.3% lower than in the 2020-21 school year.

Now, Manchester has a tax cap, and that cap applies to the school district’s proposed budget. Neither the city nor the school district is allowed to propose a budget that exceeds the average inflation rate of the prior three years. 

(City tax caps are regulated in a separate section of state law (RSA 49) than are town tax caps. Manchester’s cap, like Nashua’s, is tied to the inflation rate.)

Though SB 383 doesn’t apply to cities, and thus wouldn’t affect Manchester’s school district tax cap, Manchester’s experience shows how the formula in the bill would put a further constraint on spending.

Manchester’s school district taxes have been restrained by this cap for more than a decade, but spending still grew rapidly despite falling enrollment. The formula Manchester uses does not take into account district enrollment. If it had, the cap would’ve been lower, and therefore might have prompted some efficiencies in district budgeting.

The city school district accounts for about 52% of Manchester’s budget, which shows how consequential the new caps allowed in SB 383 could be. 

The formulas allowed in SB 383 are more flexible than the fixed number or rate caps towns and districts can adopt now. That could weaken some of the opposition to tax caps, leading to their more widespread adoption. At the same time, the bill lets voters strengthen caps by covering warrant articles that have tax impacts and by tying school district tax changes to enrollment. On the whole, the bill would turn tax caps into a more powerful and more appealing tool for taxpayers.

/by

As Manchester bus ridership collapsed in the last decade, city spending on bus service soared

, ,

In the last decade, ridership on Manchester Transit Authority (MTA) buses fell by 38.6%, yet city taxpayer spending on the MTA increased by 38.2% above the rate of inflation, an analysis by the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy shows.

As Mayor Jay Ruais and city aldermen search for savings in a stressed city budget, the MTA offers an agency that could be scrutinized for possible spending reductions.

From 2013–2022, data from the MTA reported to the Federal Transit Administration show that city bus ridership peaked in 2015 at 500,575.

Ridership fell each subsequent year, with the exception of 2021–2022, to 279,948 in 2022—a drop of 44.1% in just seven years. While this includes a steep 13.5% decline during the pandemic (2020–2022), the drop of 18.2% before the pandemic (2015–2019) was even larger. The decline over the entire decade was 38.6%. 

While ridership fell, the amount of money spent on Manchester public transportation only increased. From 2013–2022, MTA’s total operating expenses rose from $3,613,280 in 2013 to $5,219,813 in 2022, an increase of more than $1.6 million, or 44.5%, in nominal dollars. After adjusting for inflation,* the increase is still $940,802, or 22%. 

(*The inflation calculation uses Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) Indices from January 2013 and January 2022.)

This steep rise in spending includes a 62.4% increase, or a 37.1% inflation-adjusted increase, in funds from the federal government and a 63.6% increase, or a 38.2% inflation-adjusted increase, in local government spending. 

Meanwhile, Manchester public transportation has become less profitable, as fare revenues have dropped 23.9% since 2013. 

In 2013, MTA’s cost per rider was $7.93. The lowest point it reached was $7.51 in 2016. Since then, the cost per rider has skyrocketed, hitting a peak of $25.96 in 2021 before falling to $18.65 in 2022, still more than $10 more per rider than a decade earlier. All told, the last 10 years saw a jump of 135.1% in Manchester’s cost per rider. 

The huge increase in costs per rider was not just a matter of falling passenger numbers. As ridership fell during the past decade, the MTA aggressively increased service. 

Since 2013, MTA’s total miles driven have increased by 52.3%, going from 536,627 total miles in 2013 to 817,081 in 2022. Total hours driven have seen a similar increase as well, jumping 59.3% from 46,159 total hours in 2013 to 73,521 total hours in 2022. 

The MTA’s service area population and total square miles covered have expanded too. 

From 2013–2019, MTA served 135,366 residents and covered 63 square miles. Since the 2020 census, MTA has been serving 248,263 residents and covering 235 square miles, increases of 83.4% and 273%, respectively. 

The official 2023 MTA ridership and expenditure numbers won’t be publicly available until later this year. Although the city has figures showing 328,976 riders and $5,420,475 in total operating expenses for FY 2023 (cost per rider of $16.48), that time frame of measurement is different from what the Federal Transit Administration uses. Therefore, an apples-to-apples comparison can’t be made now between 2013 and 2023. The 2023 numbers won’t be added to this database until the official figures are released. 

The MTA plans to return to upwards of 400,000 annual passengers. But the current numbers and trends show a public service that yields a poor return on taxpayer spending. 

And the poor financial picture is not due solely to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the problems began years earlier. The pre-pandemic years of 2013–2019 saw MTA ridership plummet too. 

The numbers strongly suggest that MTA is hauling more taxpayer dollars than what is required for public transportation in the region. City leaders could find some budget savings by paring back MTA services to pre-pandemic levels, eliminating or curtailing underused routes, and seeking ways to enhance revenues. 



/by

How the big “HOMEnibus” housing bill would do more harm than good

, , ,

By Jason Sorens

The New Hampshire House of Representatives recently passed a couple of bills to make certain types of housing easier to build: single-family conversions to duplexes on lots with adequate sewer capacity, and detached accessory dwelling units. A more ambitious Senate bill comes up for a vote of the full chamber this Thursday, but unlike the cleaner, smaller House bills, this one has both pro-housing and anti-housing elements. 

As amended, this bill, dubbed the “HOMEnibus Act,” would do the following:

  1. Extend the existing Community Revitalization Tax Relief Incentive to cover conversions of office, industrial, and commercial uses to residential use. This is an optional program municipalities can choose to adopt. It makes it so that rehabilitation or conversion won’t incur additional property tax as a result of improvements that raise the value of a property. This incentive could result in more residential conversions, but it also reduces the property tax benefit a town receives from such conversions, which may make planning and zoning boards less likely to want to approve such developments in the first place. It’s hard to imagine that the incentive would make the housing shortage worse, but it also might not make it any better.
  2. Allow local governments that currently operate under direct democracy (towns without charters and village districts) plus Coos County to let their governing body–typically, the select board–adopt and amend zoning ordinances without a vote of the people. A vote of the people would be necessary to give the select board this power. The assumption seems to be that the people who show up on town election day are less pro-housing than select boards are. I’m unaware of direct evidence on this point. Based on evidence from Texas, Nolan Gray thinks voters are less pro-zoning than officials are. But my experience in New England suggests that the reverse might be true here, though it probably varies by town. Certainly, in places like Canaan and Dalton, the public vote requirement has stopped zoning from being adopted at all.
  3. Require planning boards to consider “alternative parking solutions” proposed by residential developers to meet on-site minimum parking requirements, and if the developer can demonstrate that these alternative solutions would meet parking demand, planning boards must accept them. Alternative solutions could include nearby off-site parking lots, agreements with ride-share companies, public transportation availability, or walkable infrastructure as designated in a master plan or zoning ordinance. This is a straightforwardly pro-housing, pro-property rights measure. It is also rather tepid, given that other states like Minnesota are proposing to abolish all on-site parking minimums statewide for all uses, but it’s better than nothing.
  4. Authorize mandatory inclusionary zoning (IZ) that would require up to 15 percent of new dwelling units be deed-restricted below-market housing provided the developer is granted a density bonus of at least 25% more units than what the base zoning allows. Unfortunately, this is an anti-housing measure, creating a type of rent control tax on new development, as Yale law professor Robert Ellickson pointed out  more than 40 years ago. Research in the Baltimore-Washington area finds that mandatory inclusionary zoning increases the cost of market-rate housing. Other peer-reviewed studies have consistently found a similar result: adopting mandatory IZ increases housing costs and distorts the market away from single-family development toward multifamily development. (However, one non-peer-reviewed study finds that moving away from mandatory to voluntary IZ does not reduce housing costs.)

The original version of the bill also had a major reform to minimum lot sizes that would have been pro-housing, but that was amended out. There is good reason to believe that the net effect of the current version of this bill would be to make housing less abundant and more costly.

Jason Sorens of Amherst is a senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research.



/by

A zoning fix for child care can apply to education too

, , ,

Child care in New Hampshire is often hard to find and, when you do, expensive. A bipartisan group of legislators has offered families some relief in a surprising way: zoning reform.

Child care offered to small groups of children in a caregiver’s home was once a popular option for many families. But professionalization and regulation of the industry produced a shift toward large (and expensive) commercial day care centers. A lot of families looking for cheaper alternatives today wonder where the old-fashioned, home-based child care providers went.

Many municipalities, it turns out, have passed zoning regulations prohibiting or restricting them.

“Many state and local governments have considered home daycares a ‘problem use’ and have therefore used zoning restrictions to ban them. Such restrictions reduce the availability of childcare in the affected neighborhoods and further increase the price of childcare services,” the Cato Institute’s Ryan Bourne has found.

House Bill 1567 would fix that in New Hampshire by requiring local zoning regulations to allow family child care programs as an accessory use (by right) to any primary residential use. 

Such home-base child care programs would be allowed “as long as all requirements for such programs adopted in rules of the department of health and human services (He-C 4002) are met,” the bill states.

Child care is expensive for many reasons, some of them regulatory. It is particularly expensive in New Hampshire. 

According to Child Care Aware, child care in New Hampshire costs an average of $10,140 per year for an infant in family child care and $10,400 for a toddler in family child care. For an infant and toddler in center-based child care, New Hampshire families are spending an average of $15,340 and $14,235 per year, respectively. 

On the “low end,” then, family child care for an infant accounts for 21% of per capita income in New Hampshire and 11.2% of medium household income in the state, while center-based child care for a toddler represents 29.5% of per capita income and 15.7% of medium household income in New Hampshire.

For context, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services considers its benchmark for affordable child care to be 7% of income. 

HB 1567 would not solve this problem, but it would help lower costs by largely doing away with “problem use” restrictions in residential zoning districts. This change would open more of the state to home-based family child care, free up the supply of those services, and, in turn, help reduce prices. 

This is a smart and efficient way to help lower child care costs by removing an unnecessary regulatory barrier that prohibits the entry of low-cost competitors into the marketplace. 

Legislators could achieve similar results by applying this same approach to a similar service: education.

Since the COVID-19 school closures, interest in small-scale education alternatives has exploded. Many families would love to send their children to home-based education providers in their own neighborhoods. But as teachers and former teachers have begun offering these services, they’ve sometimes run into the same zoning problems troubling many would-be day care providers. 

Kerry McDonald, senior education fellow with the Foundation for Economic Education, wrote two years ago for the Josiah Bartlett Center about a New Hampshire educator who encountered this problem: 

For Becky Owens in Chester, trying to offer sporadic homeschool programs on her farm property turned into a regulatory headache that likely would have deterred many other aspiring education entrepreneurs from moving forward. Owens had been homeschooling her own five children for several years, after pulling her oldest son from the local public elementary school because it wasn’t a good fit for her shy, sensitive boy. She wanted a more personalized educational environment for him and her other children that would be responsive to their individual learning needs and styles.

A college professor for 15 years with a Ph.D. in education, Owens decided to create that personalized learning environment, and eventually expand her offerings to other children in her community. In 2020, she decided to host occasional nature hikes on her property for small groups of local homeschoolers. She had a handful of students register for one of her hikes, and she placed a chalkboard sign in front of her house with the words “Farm Rich Nature Hike” so families could find her.

This simple gesture set off a cascade of events involving the local building inspector, who issued her a “cease and desist” letter for her farm walks. Over the subsequent weeks, Owens had to prepare numerous documents for local officials, including an aerial view of her property, and appear before the planning board to ask for permission to operate as a home-based business. She also had a property inspection from the local fire chief, even though her program was held entirely outside. All of this was required just so Owens could welcome a few children to her property for a nature walk. Her walks never exceeded 10 kids.

And although these local regulatory roadblocks didn’t stop Owens (eventually she got approved to operate as a home-based business), she’s the exception that proves the rule. Who knows how many other aspiring education entrepreneurs seeking to offer alternative learning environments have either given up when faced with such prospects or haven’t even tried. 

As with child care, some municipalities don’t allow “education” services to be offered in residential zones even if all other regulations are followed and there’s no impact on the neighbors. The provision of the service itself is forbidden.

HB 1567 offers a blueprint for how the state can easily expand the marketplace for needed services simply by allowing home-based providers to offer them on a small scale, provided the service doesn’t violate other rules that offer legitimate protections for consumers and neighbors.

 

/by