Gov. Chris Sununu’s efforts to boost housing production are turning in a mixed scorecard at the State House. 

The New Hampshire House voted to table a major overhaul of zoning requirements May 5, dealing a blow to an effort by Sununu and housing advocates to speed up development in the state.   

However, the Executive Council signed off on a program May 4 that would distribute $100 million in federal funding toward workforce housing efforts. 

Voting 4-1, the council approved the program two weeks after tabling it over a lack of details and the absence of safeguards for affordable housing. 

Zoning Reform Sought Faster Permitting 

In a narrow 170-159 vote, the House laid Senate Bill 400 on the table, cutting off the possibility of extensive debate.  

“This bill would effectively destroy local zoning,” argued Rep. Kurt Wuelper, a Strafford Republican, in final remarks ahead of the vote. “This bill would force – ‘encourage’ – many districts in our state to enact, to allow development in contravention of their master plans.”  

Rep. Karen Umberger, a Conway Republican, spoke in favor of the bill. “We had teachers in my school district that couldn’t find a place to live and had to not accept a job,” she said. “Policemen, the firemen, the municipal workers cannot afford the housing in many of our communities, mine included.” 

As originally proposed by Sen. Jeb Bradley, a Wolfeboro Republican, SB 400 would have included a number of regulatory changes to either incentivize or require towns to speed up permitting processes for new developments. Those changes included requiring a city or town to offer the same incentives for workforce housing that it does for housing for older residents, requiring a land-use board to give detailed written “findings of fact” explaining why it rejected a development proposal, and requiring zoning boards to approve or disapprove of an application within 90 days in most cases.  

But in a divided vote last week, the House Municipal and County Affairs Committee opted to advance an amendment that would modify some key provisions of the bill and add on unrelated bills. 

The committee tacked on legislation to allow voters to impose budget caps over their school districts, a measure to ban municipal mask mandates, and an amendment to reduce the responsibilities of town health officials and remove their authority over pandemic responses.  

The tabling vote likely signals the end of the bill, which Sununu had championed in front of the full House and Senate during his State of the State address in February. The bill would require a two-thirds vote to be taken off the table, and House deadlines require that all Senate bills be approved by the end of the day Thursday.  

$100M in Incentives OK’d 

On May 4, reacting to the amendments, Sununu expressed frustration, saying the “House really messed that bill up.” 

But he argued that a separate program that passed the Executive Council same day, his $100 million “InvestNH” grant program, could still spur needed housing development in the state. That program would allocate $60 million in matched grants to qualifying developers, and $40 million in incentives to cities and towns to quicken approvals for developers, including $5 million to help cities and towns hire help in changing their zoning ordinances.  

Sununu said that that program could encourage towns to make zoning overhauls even without a new statewide law.  

“I think towns are going to be very much incentivized to capture a huge financial opportunity,” Sununu said. “So even though there could be certain regulatory barriers that are still in place, towns are very incentivized to move quickly through their own barriers to get projects done.”  

He has also presented the program as a direct cash injection into the state’s struggling rental housing market, which has seen vacancy rates hover below 1 percent across the state and rising rents. 

The program will use federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to devote $60 million toward matched grants for developments, $30 million in incentives for towns and cities to speed up approvals of rental housing projects, $5 million to help towns and cities demolish dilapidated buildings, and $5 million to help municipalities update zoning ordinances. 

Earlier versions of the proposal contained sparse details and attracted criticism from councilors, who argued the program could be used to fund market-rate or luxury housing developments at the expense of affordable rental apartments. On April 20, the council voted, 5-0, to table the item, requesting that Department of Business and Economic Affairs Commissioner Taylor Caswell, whose department will oversee distribution of the funding, provide more information.  

By Wednesday, those positions had changed. Days before the meeting, Caswell sent councilors additional details about how his department would allocate the funds. 

The letter to councilors outlined new affordability requirements. Housing developments of more than 15 units that benefit from the money must demonstrate that they have other funding grants lined up that include affordability standards, and they must target at least 20 percent of units toward families making at or below 80 percent of the area median income, according to Caswell’s new guidelines. Grants will be capped at $3 million per project, and the affordable units must adhere to a rent cap for at least five years after completion, Caswell added.  

The clarifications appeared to sway councilors who had been skeptical. 

“I received quite a lot of feedback from housing advocacy groups and also municipalities about the guardrails that were put in,” said Councilor Cinde Warmington, a Concord Democrat, in an interview after the meeting. “Of course, when we saw that contract before it had nothing, we had no detail whatsoever. We were able to get some guardrails, which provided some assurance that this money will go to affordable housing.” 

This story has been republished from the New Hampshire Bulletin under a Creative Commons license.