{"id":10458,"date":"2025-04-01T06:16:24","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T10:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/?p=10458"},"modified":"2025-04-01T06:16:26","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T10:16:26","slug":"in-a-shift-senate-passes-string-of-bills-overriding-local-zoning-barriers-to-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/?p=10458","title":{"rendered":"In a shift, Senate passes string of bills overriding local zoning barriers to housing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From NH Bulletin<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a shift, Senate passes string of bills overriding local zoning barriers to housing<\/strong>
By:\u00a0Ethan DeWitt<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>– March 24, 2025\u00a05:00 am<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As state senators clashed over the best way to increase New Hampshire\u2019s housing supply Thursday, much of the debate hinged on a preference: the carrot or the stick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Republicans argued the carrot works well: Cities and towns should be incentivized to pass zoning ordinances that make housing construction easier, but they shouldn\u2019t be forced to do so, they argued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery zoning change proposed in this bill can already be done at the municipality level, just as towns and cities have done hundreds of times in the past,\u201d said Sen. Denise Ricciardi, a Bedford Republican. \u201c\u2026 Each town or city knows what is best for them. A few politicians that want authoritarian central planning initiated out of Concord do not and cannot know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A larger group, comprising Democrats and Republicans, argued the state was not going to expand housing to levels needed by voluntary action alone, and that the state should require that they do so \u2014 the stick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSome communities, in southern New Hampshire especially, have used every trick they can come up with to discourage building,\u201d said Sen. Keith Murphy, a Manchester Republican. \u201cEvery single inspection, every permit, every hearing, every redraft, every appeal, every impact fee, every meeting, every single delay, and every single penny a builder needs to put towards a project must be recouped through the sale of the property.\u201d Those barriers increase housing costs, either causing the projects to die or requiring the housing to be prohibitively expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s why we are where we are,\u201d Murphy said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Thursday, a majority of the Senate chose to pass legislation adhering to the stick approach, in a notable shift for the chamber that comes amid high voter demand for housing action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The debate came to a head over Senate Bill 84<\/a>, which would restrict the minimum lot size for single-family homes to 88,000 square feet \u2014 or about two acres \u2014 for at least 50 percent of zoned land that is not served by municipal water and sewer lines. For lots that are served by those lines, a municipality could pass lot size requirements no greater than 22,000 square feet, or about half an acre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cities and towns would be required to change their ordinances to comply with those restrictions by July 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the complete article HERE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related Posts:<\/strong>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From NH Bulletin: In a shift, Senate passes string of bills overriding local zoning barriers to housingBy:\u00a0Ethan DeWitt\u00a0– March 24, 2025\u00a05:00 am As state senators clashed over the best way to increase New Hampshire\u2019s housing supply Thursday, much of the debate hinged on a preference: the carrot or the stick….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10458"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10459,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10458\/revisions\/10459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}