June 3, 2025 • 42 mins
It's not your imagination: affordable housing is on almost everyone's mind in New Hampshire. Renters, homeowners, and...well, everyone: this episode is for you.
Liz asks Nick why we can't just build more houses and Nick reminds Liz that running downhill is bad for the knees.
New episodes every Tuesday.
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Have an idea for an upcoming episode? Email Liz: newhampshirehasissues@gmail.com
Links:
- Housing Action NH
- Slide deck - 2025 Housing Matters Zoom
- Granite State Poll - Housing is the top issue
- New poll suggests high concern about NH housing, but mixed appetite for zoning reform (NH Bulletin, 5/30/25)
- NH's housing crisis sparks bipartisan interest in efforts to override local zoning codes (NHPR)
- Hanover weighs zoning amendments to encourage housing development (NHPR)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Look, this is a policy choice
SPEAKER_01 (00:02):
and
SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
that we have gotten ourselves into this by failing
to build enough attainable homesfor people and affordable homes.
SPEAKER_01 (00:09):
I think I have the answer then.
We're going to solve thisproblem right now.
Here's my solution.
Right.
Why don't we build more houses?
Did I do it?
Exactly.
Did I figure it out?
You did it.
I did it.
SPEAKER_00 (00:17):
This could be a pretty quick listen for
everybody.
Four
SPEAKER_01 (00:20):
minutes and we are out of here.
We're just building more houses.
Welcome to New Hampshire HasIssues, the podcast that dares
to ask, where did all the housesgo?
(00:40):
What do you think, Nick?
What's yours?
What's your tagline?
SPEAKER_00 (00:43):
I think that's a great one.
I was thinking, am I reallygoing to listen to 60 minutes of
zoning?
And the answer is yes.
SPEAKER_01 (00:51):
Don't turn it off.
Don't turn it off.
You're going to love it.
I'm going to watch the metricsof this show, and you're going
to say the word zoning, andpeople are going to turn it off.
No, it's exciting,
SPEAKER_00 (00:59):
riveting, and also extremely important.
Yeah.
Morally important, extremelyimportant.
It's how our communities grow.
It's how we live our lives.
I think it's a moral issue inaddition to an economic one.
SPEAKER_01 (01:13):
Welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues, the
podcast that dares to ask, whatis a zoning committee?
And we're going to answer it foryou.
That's going to be the answertoo.
SPEAKER_00 (01:21):
I'll eventually get you to zoning board and planning
board.
SPEAKER_01 (01:24):
I'm so sorry.
All right.
So I haven't learned it yet.
All right.
Zoning board, planning.
SPEAKER_00 (01:30):
We won't hold it.
I don't hold it against you.
SPEAKER_01 (01:32):
I am your host, Liz Canada, and joining me today to
talk about housing affordabilityand affordable housing is the
Director of Housing Action NewHampshire, Nick Taylor.
Nick, thank you for being hereand for taking the time.
SPEAKER_00 (01:45):
Of course.
It's great to be here, have thisconversation with you, and
thanks for putting thistogether.
There are so many criticalissues facing New Hampshire, and
the ability to really just talkabout them and share experiences
and share organizations that aredoing great work is fantastic.
SPEAKER_01 (02:01):
Thank you.
Yeah, it's been an interestinglittle journey.
Some topics I'm more familiarwith and some like housing.
I'm familiar because I live in ahouse, but besides that, I care
about it, but I don't reallyknow the things that are going
on.
What does your organization do?
What does Housing Action NewHampshire
SPEAKER_00 (02:17):
do?
We're an advocacy organizationthat works to ensure that New
Hampshire is a place whereeveryone can have a home.
SPEAKER_01 (02:24):
Perfect.
What else is there to say?
Great.
Okay.
So Let's start with a simplequestion.
On a scale of 1 to 10, howaffordable is housing in New
Hampshire, with 10 being thereare places in New Hampshire
giving homes away for free, to1, which is the opposite of
that?
SPEAKER_00 (02:43):
How affordable?
You need to basically win thelottery to find a place to live.
Yeah.
We're closer to 1.
I mean, this is as bad.
We
SPEAKER_01 (02:51):
are number one.
SPEAKER_00 (02:51):
Wait, that's not.
I know.
We don't want to do that.
This is going in the wrongdirection.
But it truly is as bad as it'sever been in New Hampshire in
terms of the vacancy rates andthe rental costs and the median
sales price.
It's never been this high everbefore.
SPEAKER_01 (03:07):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (03:07):
When we sort of think about so many of these
issues, you're seeing it comingup in poll after poll and you're
hearing about it from people andyou're like, okay, well, is the
data really backing up what I'mhearing?
Or is it just the topic of theday?
People want to talk about it.
And here the data is reallybacking it up.
And it's for the purchasemarket.
(03:28):
It's for the rental market.
You name it, there's a problem.
It's all across the state.
SPEAKER_01 (03:33):
You mentioned vacancy rate.
And I've read that our vacancyrate is super low.
That sounds bad.
But what does that actuallymean?
SPEAKER_00 (03:45):
You're right to think it's bad right now.
I mean, so basically if you'reat 0% vacancy rate, it means
there are no homes available.
SPEAKER_01 (03:55):
No homes available.
And so we're pretty close?
SPEAKER_00 (03:57):
That would be zero.
And we're right around 1%.
And so that means likeregardless of your price point,
what you're looking for, you'regoing to have a really hard
time.
That's going to hurt the folkswho have the least amount of
financial flexibility the mostbecause there are a whole bunch
of homes that are not withintheir financial capacity, right?
(04:19):
And so it's sort of like a gameof musical chairs in some ways,
right?
Where there were only so manyhomes.
If you're not going to be ableto sit in one of those chairs,
you're going to be left out.
When we think about the vacancyrate, what is generally
considered a healthy market is5%.
That means that there's someflexibility.
So if you want to move somewherefor a different job or something
(04:41):
in your life changes and you'relooking for a different place,
you have a couple options.
It's not that there areabandoned buildings and there's
anything you can have at anytime, but there's some
flexibility that you're notgoing to have to turn down a job
because...
you can't find a place to live.
When we're sitting at closer tothat, like 1% or below, people
(05:02):
are turning down opportunitiesbecause they can't find a place
or they're still living withtheir parents or paying more
than 50% of their take-home payjust in their housing costs,
which you add in childcare andhealthcare and food.
It doesn't get you very far ifyou're spending that much on
(05:23):
your housing costs.
SPEAKER_01 (05:24):
Okay, so we have a very low vacancy rate.
Not great.
When I think about the housingissue, or I guess just in my own
personal experience, I just lookback and I think of my housing
as being, was I renting?
Am I buying a house?
Am I roommateing?
Which I guess is a form ofRenting, really.
(05:45):
What do folks who actually knowabout the housing issue, what do
you all think about?
What are the factors when youthink about making change around
housing?
SPEAKER_00 (05:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
When we're talking about housingpolicy, generally speaking,
we're talking about eitherrental units, rental homes for
people or for purchase homes.
So if you're buying...
One of the craziest stats to meon the for-purchase market, it
took us 18 years to go from amedian sales price of$200,000 to
(06:14):
$300,000.
It then took us three years togo from$300,000 to$400,000 and
only two years to go from$400,000 to$500,000.
You're saying
SPEAKER_01 (06:22):
a lot of numbers to me, which is great.
I love numbers.
But what does it
SPEAKER_00 (06:26):
really mean?
You're naturally going to seesome increase over time.
So that's not surprising.
But the fact that for 18 years,you were between$200,000 and
$300,000 in the statewide mediansales price.
And there was sort of creepingup and you had the great
recession in there and you hadsome fluctuation.
But generally speaking, we werepretty stable with a slight
(06:49):
increase.
The last five years, it reallyhas gone crazy.
And that's where you start toshut up
SPEAKER_01 (06:55):
really
SPEAKER_00 (06:55):
fast.
Exactly.
Like if you're when you when youactually put this graph up and I
whenever I'm givingpresentations
SPEAKER_01 (07:00):
are great for graphs and visuals.
SPEAKER_00 (07:03):
Exactly.
Exactly.
Famously a visual format.
SPEAKER_01 (07:06):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (07:06):
But you get like audible gasps from people when
they look at it and they'relike, oh, crap, that is wild.
I'm sure they see it like that.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (07:17):
It's like that.
I'm running.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
(07:40):
So a gradual increase over time,over a long period of time, and
then
SPEAKER_00 (07:44):
big spike.
So it took us three years to gofrom 300 to 400, and then two
years to go from 400 to 500.
And so that's where you'reseeing folks who are just...
unable to get into thatfor-purchase market when
historically they might havebeen, right?
They were renting.
They might be wanting to putdown roots and have a little bit
(08:07):
more space as they raise theirfamily.
And trying to afford the downpayment on that kind of
immediate sales price home isimpossible.
And that's statewide.
And so when you think about someof the Southern New Hampshire,
the Seacoast, Hanover, some ofthe other areas that are even
significantly above sort of themedian statewide number, it
(08:29):
becomes really, reallychallenging for people.
SPEAKER_01 (08:32):
And the low vacancy rate, like that really small
vacancy rate means, I think, ifI'm looking for a house, if I'm
like, this is my time, I'm goingto go buy a house, that the Sort
of variety of prices availableof homes is very limited too,
because there's just fewer homesfor sale.
SPEAKER_00 (08:47):
Yeah, exactly.
And so you're looking at that,again, sort of on the, if you're
trying to buy a place, but thenif you're renting a place too,
like across the board, it's justincredibly, incredibly
challenging.
And again, that like is so hardfor folks that don't have sort
of the flexibility or on a tighttimeline.
Look, this is a policy choice.
and that we have gottenourselves into this by failing
(09:08):
to build enough attainable homesfor people.
SPEAKER_01 (09:11):
Why is it not as simple as,
SPEAKER_00 (09:14):
just go build more houses?
The reality is a lot of it wouldbe that way if we would allow
folks to build, right?
And so there's a coupledifferent factors, and some that
we have control over and somethat we don't.
When we're talking about why arethere not enough homes or why
are homes so expensive, we talkabout these five factors L's.
(09:36):
Lending, labor, lumber, laws,and land.
All of those factor into housingcosts and whether you're
building something.
A lot of those, we, especiallyin New Hampshire, don't have
control over, right?
We're not really...
Mm-hmm.
(10:13):
there were all sorts ofdifferent types of housing
options out there that therewere...
In
SPEAKER_01 (10:17):
New Hampshire, there were different types of...
SPEAKER_00 (10:19):
In New Hampshire.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And across the country.
I mean, we should say this isparticularly, I think, acute in
New Hampshire in terms of sortof where our numbers have always
been.
But this is a national problem.
And that's why you're seeingmore national conversations
around this and federally andjust sort of the dialogue out
there.
For a long time, folks were ableto build a second accessory
(10:42):
dwelling unit or a second homefor their in-law or for a family
member, or they were able tojust put duplex up.
And so they lived in a half andrented out the other half to
help pay for their costs.
Or they divided up their pieceof land and had a couple small
lots that were there becausefolks didn't need a huge track
(11:02):
of land, right?
And then in the 1960s, we reallystarted seeing a lot more of
that sort of exclusionary zoningpiece where folks were saying,
look, the only thing you canbuild is a large single family
home on a large lot.
And Not that all zoning isracist, but there is absolutely
a racial history behind zoningand especially the exclusionary
(11:24):
zoning piece of this.
And so we kind of went throughthis long process where there
was this idea that everyoneneeded their own single family
home.
And that was the only thing thatshould get built besides in some
sort of core city areas.
And that under building for along, long time has led us.
And so it's not to say that theanswer to everything is just
(11:47):
sort of let the market handleit, because we also need more
attainable options for folksthat need something other than a
million dollar home.
SPEAKER_01 (11:58):
I heard you say there's the exclusionary zoning
practices.
I serve...
on our town's budgetrecommendations committee.
That's one committee in our townwhere it's volunteers who come
together to try to solve thethings that are in front of our
town.
And I know one of thosecommittees is called the zoning
committee.
What is a zoning committee?
(12:18):
It sounds extremely boring.
I'm not
SPEAKER_00 (12:20):
going to lie to you.
You're saying it's boring comingfrom a budget committee member.
SPEAKER_01 (12:25):
Zing, Nick.
Yes, I love a spreadsheet, butwhat do they talk about in the
zoning committee?
I understand what I talk about,but what do they talk about?
SPEAKER_00 (12:32):
To kind of really nerd out, Yes.
Go for it.
Nerd out.
(13:04):
your town rules about what youcan build where.
And so it's literally what cango in there, but also how high
can it be?
What are the setbacks?
And so setbacks being like theside, how far away from your
neighbor's lot?
How big does your lot have to beto begin with to do anything?
How many parking spots do youneed to pave to be able to build
(13:26):
a home?
So all of this is in your town.
In
SPEAKER_01 (13:29):
our little town.
In your town.
There are these town rules thatsay you need to have this many
parking spots before you buildanything.
Right.
Or before you build specificthings.
SPEAKER_00 (13:36):
Exactly.
Exactly.
And it depends on which zoneyou're in.
So you understand why people getconfused when they try to do
something with their property,right?
And so if you are trying to dosomething that's outside of
those town rules, that's whenyou go to the zoning board.
And I sat on our city's zoningboard for a couple of years.
(13:57):
And so you get everything from,I'd like to build a deck, but
I'm a little bit too close to myneighbor's lot and I'm supposed
to have 20 feet, but I reallyhave 17 feet.
But you also get things like, Iwould like to build a sober
home, or I would like to build100 apartments, as opposed to
the density that would let mebuild 50.
And so you're getting a wholerange of how far outside of
(14:19):
those existing rules there are.
And so that's what the zoningboard does.
The planning board handles muchmore of sort of the within the
existing zoning framework,reviewing and asking questions
and doing sort of that vettingprocess that comes with before
you're trying to buildsomething.
SPEAKER_01 (14:35):
So these zoning boards, these planning boards,
they operate within, you know,the town level or the city
level.
How does the state factor intothis?
Because if you have some townsthat allow things and some towns
that don't, where does the statejump into
SPEAKER_00 (14:51):
this work?
I mean, this is one of thecentral sort of questions, you
know, when we get into sort ofthe housing policy piece at the
state level is, is like the bigissue is this idea of local
control.
And like, who's decision is itto allow for what can be built?
Right now on most of these,municipalities could already do
(15:12):
them, but sometimes they do not.
That practice of preventingcertain types of things from
being built has statewide policyimplications.
And so one example of that isthis bill that's been moving
through the process, House Bill631.
This is sponsored byRepresentative Allie Murray from
Manchester.
It's kind of dubbed the HomesNear Jobs bill because it's
(15:34):
allowing for Multifamily, whereyou allow for retail or office
space, taking those aging stripmalls and putting housing on top
of them or taking a older officebuilding and turning them into
apartments, which obviously notalways the easiest thing to do,
but it just would allow you todo it.
What would then happen is thatwould be state policy.
You have to allow that.
(15:55):
But then the municipality wouldstill sort of say, okay, well,
you can't go over this height.
You have to have this manyparking spots.
That's where we start to talkabout, well, what is the
interplay between localcommunities and the state when
it comes to these policies?
And so this is sort of asituation of starting to put
some guardrails on how far arewe going to go and what are some
(16:16):
baseline principles that we'regoing to sort of say everyone
has to abide by these and thenyou can implement them as your
community sees fit, right?
It's like this housing shortagein and of itself is a state
issue.
It's not just a Manchester issueor an Exeter issue or a Keene
issue, right?
It's not just a city issueeither.
It's smaller municipalities thatcan't find a fire chief or
(16:39):
teachers to teach in theclassroom because there's no
homes available, right?
And so there's sort of that bigpicture idea of like, what does
local control mean?
Does it mean individual propertyrights?
Does it mean central planning.
You talk about those issues, butlike when you actually think
about sort of the practicalimplications of New Hampshire
communities, you got to balancethose and you got to find that
(17:02):
happy medium that says, look, wecan't go town by town and have
everyone individually changetheir policies.
There's got to be someoverarching guiding principles
that we have as a state thatsays you should be allowed to do
this.
Municipality go implement it,how you see fit, but within
those barriers.
And we've done this before.
You know, there's sometimes thisidea of, well, local control,
(17:24):
especially on housing and zoningis sacrosanct in New Hampshire,
right?
But that's not really the case.
When now U.S.
Senator Maggie Hassan wasgovernor, she signed the first
ADU law in New Hampshire.
And ADUs are accessory dwellingunits, often sort of in-law
apartments.
And that allowed for ADUs to beattached to single family homes
(17:44):
and said, you know, you've gotto allow Right.
(18:08):
okay, this is something that wevalue as a full state.
Let's go allow you to implementit locally.
And that's sort of where theseconversations are coming up till
now and saying, let's extendthat to allow detached ADUs.
So like a structure that's not abasement or an attic or attached
garage, but maybe it's a barnand maybe that should be allowed
to be an accessory dwellingunit.
(18:28):
And right now about Half the NewHampshire communities allow it
and half don't.
And so that's just saying like,look, again, we got to move that
ball forward.
SPEAKER_01 (18:36):
What is the rationale for not allowing it?
Like what arguments are made tosay, no, we don't think you
should be allowed to transformyour barn into a living space
for somebody else
SPEAKER_00 (18:50):
yeah i mean that that's a great question right
and so like i've
SPEAKER_01 (18:53):
been practicing my question
SPEAKER_00 (18:54):
that's what we're here for i mean so like there's
like there's a couple piecessometimes it's just the fact
that updating all these zoningordinances is also confusing and
tough and you have hundreds ofpages of of zoning regulations
that it becomes you know justlike a inertia problem right of
like you need someone who'sgonna go in there and sort of
champion it and want to make thechange and and all that.
(19:16):
But you also run into situationswhere folks like, look, change
is hard.
There's a general feeling of Iam here.
Things are going well.
Why would we rock the boat onthis?
And that's where you start toget into some challenges around
municipal government and justgovernment in general, where the
(19:36):
folks who have time to show upto that zoning board meeting or
show up to that planning boardmeeting or serve.
SPEAKER_01 (19:42):
Or know what a zoning
SPEAKER_00 (19:44):
board or planning board
SPEAKER_01 (19:45):
is.
SPEAKER_00 (19:46):
Yeah.
If you've got time to be doingthat, you're probably less
worried about putting food onthe table and where are you
going to sleep at night and allof that.
Not to say that everyone thatserves on these boards is not
well-intentioned, but therecertainly are some
well-intentioned folks and somefolks that I think would love to
learn more.
But you do absolutely have somepeople that sort of say, look, I
(20:08):
This town was perfect the day Imoved here, and I don't want to
see it change.
SPEAKER_01 (20:12):
Because I moved here.
Right.
Because I arrived
SPEAKER_00 (20:15):
perfect.
I arrived here.
The town had never been betterat that moment.
That's
SPEAKER_02 (20:19):
right.
SPEAKER_00 (20:20):
And I'm never going to do anything about it.
And it was really interesting.
We had a public hearing on abill this year, and you had
someone who was testifying onthe bill.
And they were in opposition toit.
It was a bill that would changesome zoning rules.
laws and the person was tearingup and they were saying, look,
this change of the community, Iwant to be able to hand this
(20:42):
community down to my kids andhave them live there.
And you had a member of theHouse Housing Committee who
said, it's really interestingyou bring that up because I'm in
support of this bill for thatexact same reason is I'm worried
my kids won't have a place tolive that they can afford in
this community.
And so you get people thatsometimes are coming in and are
afraid of that change and don'tknow what it will look like.
(21:04):
And You have the other folks whoare coming in and saying, look,
we're going to grow.
The question is, how are wegoing to do it?
And how do you balance sort ofthe things we all love about New
Hampshire and our communitieswith the need for more housing
options?
And oftentimes those thingsaren't in conflict with each
other.
There's ways to do this thatmake sense and are thoughtful
(21:26):
and smart.
And when we start to allow formore density in certain areas,
it also allows us to have moreconservation in other areas,
right?
And so you sort of go againstthese just like urban sprawl and
suburban sprawl and all of that.
But basically, you get down tothis idea of change and how
tough that is for people.
And certainly, there are stillsome folks that would prefer to
(21:49):
keep no new people moving in.
SPEAKER_01 (21:51):
Don't want to become another state that might be
towards the south.
Let's say...
I am upset.
I've heard you talk about this,Nick.
I'm mad.
I'm like, wait, I think my towndoesn't let me do this.
Right.
How do those rules change?
How does a town decide theirrules are outdated or they need
(22:11):
to revisit them?
What is the process for makingchange in a local community?
Because that's as local as youcan possibly get.
SPEAKER_00 (22:18):
Planning boards can initiate in towns.
So the towns that have a townmeeting process, planning boards
can initiate- zoning changesthat then go to the full town
meeting for approval by everyonein the municipality.
And they can only change themonce a year.
I mean, it has to be that townmeeting process.
And so I would encourage folksto either run or get appointed,
(22:41):
if it's an appointed position,to your local land use boards.
You can make a real differencefor people in advancing some of
these policies.
But also talk to existingmembers and ask them about it
and take a look at your localregulations.
And there's this new tool thatSt.
Anselm College has put together,the New Hampshire Zoning Atlas,
that actually allows you tovisualize this.
(23:03):
And that it used to be the onlyway to do it was to actually go
in and read these huge documentsthat are very legalese.
And now there's a great map andyou can just click and say-
SPEAKER_01 (23:14):
If you're looking for a good beach read, your
SPEAKER_00 (23:16):
ordinances.
Yeah, get involved.
I mean, get on the planningboard.
You actually, you can have ahuge difference about how things
look and so much of how ourcommunities end up are because
of the zoning regulations thatwe have.
I mean, people build to what youallow, right?
And so if you want to see moremixed use where there's shops on
the first floor and apartmentson the second floor, like zone
(23:38):
for it and allow it and you'llstart to get it and encourage,
you know, your state legislatorsto support policies that allow
for these additionalflexibilities.
And so that's how you can takethese issues at the state and
local level and try to make adifference with them.
SPEAKER_01 (23:52):
We've talked a lot about the local level, which is
great because I think there'snot enough conversations out
there in general about what canhappen in your own town and
community.
But also what happens with thestate?
We sort of touched on a littlebit of it, but what has the
state done or what has the statenot done when it comes to
housing?
SPEAKER_00 (24:10):
So there's this sort of state regulatory policy where
you can sort of say you have toallow for this.
And that's one thing the statecan do.
The state has also passed thishousing champions program in the
last budget that Senator RebeccaPerkins-Quokka has long been a
leader of.
And this is an incentive-basedprogram that essentially says,
if you take pro-housing steps,and some of this is local zoning
(24:32):
ordinances, some of this is justapprovals and trainings.
If you take some of those steps,you become a housing champions
community and you get access toadditional grants and that you
can use for infrastructureinvestments or sidewalks or
whatever you want to do withthem.
But essentially taking thatcarrot approach of saying, if
you do something good, we willdangle some money in front of
you and help make it easier.
(24:54):
Good job.
SPEAKER_01 (24:54):
Thumbs up.
Here's a treat.
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (24:56):
Exactly.
Then the other piece that thestate could play a role in is
the below market rate housing.
And so the things we've talkedabout so far in terms of
Accessory dwelling units ormixed-use housing, again, where
there's residential andcommercial in the same area, all
of those are sort of market ratebut attainable.
(25:17):
They're just naturally moreaffordable options.
There's also below-market-ratehousing that requires some sort
of, generally speaking, somesort of financial incentive.
And the state has really onemain tool that it uses
effectively.
to incentivize and help make themath work on these developments.
And that's the AffordableHousing Fund.
SPEAKER_01 (25:38):
All right.
I want to jump in for a secondbecause you said Affordable
Housing Fund.
I see that phrase affordablehousing a lot.
And I have wondered, is it atechnical term?
Is it a legal term?
Or does it just mean like myhousing is not super expensive?
I'm feeling pretty good.
What does that phrase actuallymean?
SPEAKER_00 (25:57):
Yeah.
The housing glossary challengesare real.
And we can- Show notes, just aglossary of 85 terms.
Exactly.
Because it is usedinterchangeably all the time.
And so there's a couple of waysto think about it.
Affordable housing, lowercase a,that's just like affordable, is
(26:18):
you can have affordable housingfor anybody at any income level
because generally affordabilityis defined by HUD and it's
generally best practices around30% of your income going to
housing and no more than that.
Now, a lot of folks-
SPEAKER_01 (26:33):
30% or less of your income-
SPEAKER_00 (26:35):
Going to your all-in housing costs.
Yeah, absolutely.
Then it is, quote unquote-Affordable, lowercase a.
(27:02):
going to your all-in housingcosts.
Capital A affordable housingfund generally connotes some
sort of legal financialincentive that you're going into
as the developer to develophousing that is affordable using
that 30% threshold to some levelof the area median income.
(27:23):
If you're in the Boston HUDregion, the number is going to
be a little bit higher.
The Portsmouth region is alittle bit higher than it is up
in the of what you could chargeand who you're renting it to.
And so if you're using thataffordable housing fund and
you're a developer and you'resaying, I'm going to do 20 homes
at...
50% area median income or less.
(27:45):
And so you go over and you sortof say 50% of the area median
income in Manchester, I can'tcharge more than whatever 30% of
that is for my affordable piece.
SPEAKER_01 (27:56):
So what is in Manchester to qualify would be
different than Portsmouthbecause of the median income
being different within those twoareas.
SPEAKER_00 (28:05):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (28:06):
And then different in Berlin in the North country.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_00 (28:09):
And so the state affordable housing fund, which
is administered by new hampshirehousing is low interest loans
and grants for below market ratehousing and so this is things
that are required to be set at alower cost and oftentimes
there's income verification tomake sure that you know
whoever's living in them youknow qualifies and is truly sort
(28:30):
of making at whatever level thethe sort of proposal originally
had that got the approval and sothe state affordable housing
fund is a big big tool when itcomes to being able to do this
Now, there's also a whole bunchof federal programs that folks
also use to develop affordablehousing, and New Hampshire
Housing administers a lot ofthose locally, too.
(28:52):
The financial incentive piece isa big issue around the state
budget every two years andaround additional funding.
sort of appropriations.
(29:31):
Who are the folks who areworking on this?
Who are the movers and shakers,whether it's at the local level
or at the state level, who areadvocating for the legislature
to step up and continue
SPEAKER_01 (29:44):
to fund that, increase the annual
appropriation from the realestate transfer tax, and make an
additional appropriation intothe fund in this budget cycle?
trying to solve.
I don't even know if it'spossible to solve, but trying to
work on this housingaffordability, housing
availability options.
SPEAKER_00 (30:00):
It's great.
I mean, there's a really broadcoalition who are concerned
about this and it's starting tocome up even more and more when
people are asking theirmemberships, like what issues do
you care about?
It's really interesting.
And I'll talk a little aboutsort of the legislative
coalitions as well as sort ofthe outside the dome The regular
people.
(30:46):
their kids and so that they canhandle some of the child care
and be around the family.
Just had that episode
SPEAKER_01 (30:51):
a few weeks ago, needing child care.
Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_00 (30:53):
You start to solve a lot of these other problems by
kind of going back to some ofthe intergenerational living and
some of the different options orjust having some additional
independence but flexibility.
And so we've worked also on theADU bill with the disability
rights community because that'sanother great way to either have
some independence for an adultchild who can live independent
(31:16):
Right.
Right.
law as well.
The business community, this isan issue where they are hearing
(31:39):
time and again from theirmembers and their businesses and
the large employers in NewHampshire that they can't find
workers to be able to grow.
And so you have the Chambers ofCommerce and the BIA working on
this too.
And certainly, there's somegreat work being done by Stay
Work Play and 603 Forward andForward Foundation and the youth
(32:00):
movement and some of the othersort of younger organizers who
are hearing from that workingage, young adults, folks who are
just graduating college orentering the workforce from the
trades who are saying, where'smy opportunity to live here?
I want to stay, but I can'tpossibly afford it.
So it's a really broad coalitionof organizations who are doing
(32:21):
this work.
There's also some incredibleinstitutional players who do
some of the lending on this thatare doing great work.
I mean, New Hampshire Housing asboth a lender and an educator on
the work that they do with thefinancing piece, but also the
research piece to make sure thatfolks have the best up-to-date
data.
You know, the CommunityDevelopment Finance Authority,
(32:41):
they do some great work to helpsort of turn old mill buildings
and other tax credit programsthat help revitalize things.
So then all of this comestogether into some really
interesting coalitions at thelegislative like under the dome
state house level work and a lotof it depends a little bit on
like is this a funding bill isthis a regulatory bill but you
(33:01):
know we've seen some of theregulatory you know like
allowing for accessory dwellingunits or allowing the homes to
be built near jobs pass withhalf of the Republican caucus
and two-thirds of the Democraticcaucus.
And so you end up in thesecoalitions that are unlike so
many other sort of the hotbutton issues of the day, right?
(33:22):
Because you have some folks whoare coming at this from the
moral imperative of not pullingthe ladder up when you got there
and allowing people to have moreoptions and looking out for your
neighbors.
And you have some folks who arecoming at this from a property
rights perspective of like, Ishould be able to do what I want
with my property.
And it leads to some reallyinteresting coalitions.
(33:45):
There's that
SPEAKER_01 (33:45):
word interesting.
The word interesting does a lotof heavy lifting in a lot of
these episodes, that's for sure.
Do you see things moving in theright direction this year?
Are we going to see a noticeabledifference this year?
Is it going to take some time?
What happens next?
You've got these interestingcoalitions working together.
(34:08):
What is the path forward fromhere?
SPEAKER_00 (34:10):
Thank you so much.
Some have made it through bothchambers and we'll have to deal
with the committee orconference.
SPEAKER_01 (34:30):
Right.
When the two sides, the twochambers get together in a room,
they're like, all right, let'sduke this out in a committee.
Let's do this.
SPEAKER_00 (34:37):
Exactly.
And then things will go to thegovernor and she will have to
sign some of these regulatorybills if they're going to have
an impact.
That piece is still TBD, butthere's a lot of progress there.
The funding piece is essentialto be able to hit that whole
thing.
housing continuum when it comesto the affordability piece, when
it comes to making sure that ouremergency shelters are funded,
(35:00):
that the transitional housingand supportive housing options
are funded.
And so you can't have onewithout the other.
And it's not going to be asuccessful session unless we get
both through because we've gotto be able to hit folks at all
levels of the income spectrumwho are struggling with this.
The other challenge is And whatI think makes housing such a
tough, in some ways, sort ofpolitical challenge to solve is
(35:23):
that, you know, it took usdecades to get here.
It's going to take us a longtime to get out.
Even if you pass, you know, someof these proposals and you fund
the Affordable Housing Fund.
Projects still need to get builtand there needs to be land and
there's got to be that turnover.
People got to want to do it.
And there absolutely is somesort of pent up demand to be
(35:45):
able to go ahead and do more ofthese projects.
But even then they take years toget through oftentimes sort of
the planning process and thenactually getting them built and
getting the materials and theconstruction workers and all of
that.
It makes it really challengingthat you can have a great
session Right.
Yeah.
(36:06):
Yeah.
a huge package of policies, butit does point us in the right
(36:27):
direction.
And that I am absolutelyoptimistic about.
SPEAKER_01 (36:30):
We didn't get into the unhoused population.
And that might just need to be awhole other episode, honestly,
because it's such a hugecomponent when we think about
there's not very much housingout there.
And there are folks who areliving in their cars, living in
hotels.
And, you know, maybe you coulddo like a little preview for a
one day episode, but like, Whenpeople think of homeless folks
(36:52):
or unhoused folks, they think ofpeople on sidewalks or maybe in
tents.
But so many of them, they havejobs, they're sleeping in their
cars, they're in a hotel.
So what does the state do or notdo for those folks?
We
SPEAKER_00 (37:05):
have to do more, no doubt about it.
And I'm really glad you broughtup the point of how this shows
up in a lot of differentcommunities because you do hear
it.
You hear from folks that say,oh, I don't think that's an
issue in my community or even inNew Hampshire.
That is a big city issue thatwe're not dealing with.
Right.
And that's not true.
(37:26):
It's like in all of ourcommunities, there are folks who
are living in their cars orsleeping in a tent or couch
surfing friend to friend.
So many of us out there are sortof one financial challenge away
from being there.
When we think about it, itreally is an issue that is
impacting New Hampshire and it'sincreasing.
Ultimately, homelessness is ahousing issue and that
(37:48):
ultimately, if you're going toget out of this, you just need
more housing.
homes that are affordable forpeople.
And that is the best sort oflong-term stability piece.
But in the interim, we need tomake sure that the shelter
capacity is there, right?
And that right now we have 13state-funded shelters are
getting pennies on the dollarfor how much it actually costs
(38:11):
to house somebody under theirroof and their shelter programs
that is coming through thestate.
Department of Health and HumanServices.
You also hear about some of thechallenges with the voucher
program where folks may have avoucher, but we allow in New
Hampshire for income-baseddiscrimination.
And so you could have someonethat gets denied solely because
(38:33):
they are trying to pay with avoucher.
In a number of other states,that is illegal.
You can't discriminate onsomeone just because they're a
voucher holder.
And so you have folks who get avoucher and they've waited years
on these
SPEAKER_01 (38:46):
lists.
A specific housing.
SPEAKER_00 (38:48):
A specific housing voucher.
Yeah, yeah.
Section 8.
It's a federal housing voucher,but it is used through–
administered locally througheither New Hampshire Housing or
a local housing authority.
And they're waiting years andyears for a voucher.
They finally get one and theycan't find a place that will
either accept the voucher or is–rented at the level that the
voucher will pay for, right?
(39:09):
Because the voucher is alsocapped at a certain amount.
It's not just a, you can go livewherever and we'll pay whatever,
right?
And so like that is a realchallenge.
And this is also where you startto touch on the federal
uncertainty and the HUD cutsbecause so much of the sort of
funding at that level is alsocoming from the federal
(39:30):
government.
And folks are really worriedabout that, rightly so.
SPEAKER_01 (39:35):
Rightly so.
Yeah, there are a lot of changesthat are going to impact people.
Definitely.
Nick, thank you so much forsharing more about like, why
don't we have enough housing inthe state?
What folks are doing about it,whether it's your organization
or lawmakers or how to getinvolved at the local level.
And queuing up another hugeissue, which is the for folks
who are unhoused, unsheltered,like, you know, I think that's a
(39:58):
whole other episode that we needto dig into.
But thank you for sort ofenlightening us to get started
in that way.
So thank you for being
SPEAKER_00 (40:04):
here.
Of course.
Liz, thanks for hosting thisconversation, for inviting me
on.
I mean, it really was such a funtime to talk through these
critical issues that are facingNew Hampshire, what we can do
about it, and how we're going tomake progress by working
together.
SPEAKER_01 (40:19):
Everyone should go find their planning board and
zoning board.
Read all of the rules thissummer.
Liz Canada's summer readinglist, or at least if this is
something that you care about,you're someone they can reach
out to.
SPEAKER_00 (40:30):
Absolutely.
So folks who are interested inlearning more about this,
definitely reach out to us.
They're Housing Action NewHampshire.
If you're looking for somethingeven in your community, we can
help put you in touch with folkswho are doing this work on the
ground in your town or in yourregion to be able to help you
through it.
And if you don't want to readyour full zoning-
SPEAKER_01 (40:50):
Why wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_00 (40:51):
Ordinances.
You can go to the Zoning Atlas.
Nick, don't
SPEAKER_01 (40:54):
talk it down.
Talk it up.
It is exciting, riveting.
SPEAKER_00 (40:58):
Right.
Tables of dimensions, plotsizes, setbacks.
It's a real party trick.
Right into the show, what wasyour
SPEAKER_01 (41:05):
favorite zoning ordinance that you read this
summer?
That's what we're going to havein the fall.
You don't have to start fromsquare one.
You don't have to try to figureit out on your own that your
organization is here and you allare already plugged in and can
plug people in.
We'll have in the show notesyour charts and graphs that if
this were a video podcast...
We would have blown
SPEAKER_00 (41:24):
everyone's minds.
Right.
Wait till the YouTube channelstarts to blow up.
We'll come back.
We'll walk through the slidedeck, all the numbers.
SPEAKER_01 (41:32):
Next slide, please.
It'll be perfect.
SPEAKER_00 (41:34):
That'll get people to tune out.
Look, this is a policy choice
SPEAKER_01 (00:02):
and
SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
that we have gotten ourselves into this by failing
to build enough attainable homesfor people and affordable homes.
SPEAKER_01 (00:09):
I think I have the answer then.
We're going to solve thisproblem right now.
Here's my solution.
Right.
Why don't we build more houses?
Did I do it?
Exactly.
Did I figure it out?
You did it.
I did it.
SPEAKER_00 (00:17):
This could be a pretty quick listen for
everybody.
Four
SPEAKER_01 (00:20):
minutes and we are out of here.
We're just building more houses.
Welcome to New Hampshire HasIssues, the podcast that dares
to ask, where did all the housesgo?
(00:40):
What do you think, Nick?
What's yours?
What's your tagline?
SPEAKER_00 (00:43):
I think that's a great one.
I was thinking, am I reallygoing to listen to 60 minutes of
zoning?
And the answer is yes.
SPEAKER_01 (00:51):
Don't turn it off.
Don't turn it off.
You're going to love it.
I'm going to watch the metricsof this show, and you're going
to say the word zoning, andpeople are going to turn it off.
No, it's exciting,
SPEAKER_00 (00:59):
riveting, and also extremely important.
Yeah.
Morally important, extremelyimportant.
It's how our communities grow.
It's how we live our lives.
I think it's a moral issue inaddition to an economic one.
SPEAKER_01 (01:13):
Welcome to New Hampshire Has Issues, the
podcast that dares to ask, whatis a zoning committee?
And we're going to answer it foryou.
That's going to be the answertoo.
SPEAKER_00 (01:21):
I'll eventually get you to zoning board and planning
board.
SPEAKER_01 (01:24):
I'm so sorry.
All right.
So I haven't learned it yet.
All right.
Zoning board, planning.
SPEAKER_00 (01:30):
We won't hold it.
I don't hold it against you.
SPEAKER_01 (01:32):
I am your host, Liz Canada, and joining me today to
talk about housing affordabilityand affordable housing is the
Director of Housing Action NewHampshire, Nick Taylor.
Nick, thank you for being hereand for taking the time.
SPEAKER_00 (01:45):
Of course.
It's great to be here, have thisconversation with you, and
thanks for putting thistogether.
There are so many criticalissues facing New Hampshire, and
the ability to really just talkabout them and share experiences
and share organizations that aredoing great work is fantastic.
SPEAKER_01 (02:01):
Thank you.
Yeah, it's been an interestinglittle journey.
Some topics I'm more familiarwith and some like housing.
I'm familiar because I live in ahouse, but besides that, I care
about it, but I don't reallyknow the things that are going
on.
What does your organization do?
What does Housing Action NewHampshire
SPEAKER_00 (02:17):
do?
We're an advocacy organizationthat works to ensure that New
Hampshire is a place whereeveryone can have a home.
SPEAKER_01 (02:24):
Perfect.
What else is there to say?
Great.
Okay.
So Let's start with a simplequestion.
On a scale of 1 to 10, howaffordable is housing in New
Hampshire, with 10 being thereare places in New Hampshire
giving homes away for free, to1, which is the opposite of
that?
SPEAKER_00 (02:43):
How affordable?
You need to basically win thelottery to find a place to live.
Yeah.
We're closer to 1.
I mean, this is as bad.
We
SPEAKER_01 (02:51):
are number one.
SPEAKER_00 (02:51):
Wait, that's not.
I know.
We don't want to do that.
This is going in the wrongdirection.
But it truly is as bad as it'sever been in New Hampshire in
terms of the vacancy rates andthe rental costs and the median
sales price.
It's never been this high everbefore.
SPEAKER_01 (03:07):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (03:07):
When we sort of think about so many of these
issues, you're seeing it comingup in poll after poll and you're
hearing about it from people andyou're like, okay, well, is the
data really backing up what I'mhearing?
Or is it just the topic of theday?
People want to talk about it.
And here the data is reallybacking it up.
And it's for the purchasemarket.
(03:28):
It's for the rental market.
You name it, there's a problem.
It's all across the state.
SPEAKER_01 (03:33):
You mentioned vacancy rate.
And I've read that our vacancyrate is super low.
That sounds bad.
But what does that actuallymean?
SPEAKER_00 (03:45):
You're right to think it's bad right now.
I mean, so basically if you'reat 0% vacancy rate, it means
there are no homes available.
SPEAKER_01 (03:55):
No homes available.
And so we're pretty close?
SPEAKER_00 (03:57):
That would be zero.
And we're right around 1%.
And so that means likeregardless of your price point,
what you're looking for, you'regoing to have a really hard
time.
That's going to hurt the folkswho have the least amount of
financial flexibility the mostbecause there are a whole bunch
of homes that are not withintheir financial capacity, right?
(04:19):
And so it's sort of like a gameof musical chairs in some ways,
right?
Where there were only so manyhomes.
If you're not going to be ableto sit in one of those chairs,
you're going to be left out.
When we think about the vacancyrate, what is generally
considered a healthy market is5%.
That means that there's someflexibility.
So if you want to move somewherefor a different job or something
(04:41):
in your life changes and you'relooking for a different place,
you have a couple options.
It's not that there areabandoned buildings and there's
anything you can have at anytime, but there's some
flexibility that you're notgoing to have to turn down a job
because...
you can't find a place to live.
When we're sitting at closer tothat, like 1% or below, people
(05:02):
are turning down opportunitiesbecause they can't find a place
or they're still living withtheir parents or paying more
than 50% of their take-home payjust in their housing costs,
which you add in childcare andhealthcare and food.
It doesn't get you very far ifyou're spending that much on
(05:23):
your housing costs.
SPEAKER_01 (05:24):
Okay, so we have a very low vacancy rate.
Not great.
When I think about the housingissue, or I guess just in my own
personal experience, I just lookback and I think of my housing
as being, was I renting?
Am I buying a house?
Am I roommateing?
Which I guess is a form ofRenting, really.
(05:45):
What do folks who actually knowabout the housing issue, what do
you all think about?
What are the factors when youthink about making change around
housing?
SPEAKER_00 (05:54):
Yeah, absolutely.
When we're talking about housingpolicy, generally speaking,
we're talking about eitherrental units, rental homes for
people or for purchase homes.
So if you're buying...
One of the craziest stats to meon the for-purchase market, it
took us 18 years to go from amedian sales price of$200,000 to
(06:14):
$300,000.
It then took us three years togo from$300,000 to$400,000 and
only two years to go from$400,000 to$500,000.
You're saying
SPEAKER_01 (06:22):
a lot of numbers to me, which is great.
I love numbers.
But what does it
SPEAKER_00 (06:26):
really mean?
You're naturally going to seesome increase over time.
So that's not surprising.
But the fact that for 18 years,you were between$200,000 and
$300,000 in the statewide mediansales price.
And there was sort of creepingup and you had the great
recession in there and you hadsome fluctuation.
But generally speaking, we werepretty stable with a slight
(06:49):
increase.
The last five years, it reallyhas gone crazy.
And that's where you start toshut up
SPEAKER_01 (06:55):
really
SPEAKER_00 (06:55):
fast.
Exactly.
Like if you're when you when youactually put this graph up and I
whenever I'm givingpresentations
SPEAKER_01 (07:00):
are great for graphs and visuals.
SPEAKER_00 (07:03):
Exactly.
Exactly.
Famously a visual format.
SPEAKER_01 (07:06):
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (07:06):
But you get like audible gasps from people when
they look at it and they'relike, oh, crap, that is wild.
I'm sure they see it like that.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (07:17):
It's like that.
I'm running.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
(07:40):
So a gradual increase over time,over a long period of time, and
then
SPEAKER_00 (07:44):
big spike.
So it took us three years to gofrom 300 to 400, and then two
years to go from 400 to 500.
And so that's where you'reseeing folks who are just...
unable to get into thatfor-purchase market when
historically they might havebeen, right?
They were renting.
They might be wanting to putdown roots and have a little bit
(08:07):
more space as they raise theirfamily.
And trying to afford the downpayment on that kind of
immediate sales price home isimpossible.
And that's statewide.
And so when you think about someof the Southern New Hampshire,
the Seacoast, Hanover, some ofthe other areas that are even
significantly above sort of themedian statewide number, it
(08:29):
becomes really, reallychallenging for people.
SPEAKER_01 (08:32):
And the low vacancy rate, like that really small
vacancy rate means, I think, ifI'm looking for a house, if I'm
like, this is my time, I'm goingto go buy a house, that the Sort
of variety of prices availableof homes is very limited too,
because there's just fewer homesfor sale.
SPEAKER_00 (08:47):
Yeah, exactly.
And so you're looking at that,again, sort of on the, if you're
trying to buy a place, but thenif you're renting a place too,
like across the board, it's justincredibly, incredibly
challenging.
And again, that like is so hardfor folks that don't have sort
of the flexibility or on a tighttimeline.
Look, this is a policy choice.
and that we have gottenourselves into this by failing
(09:08):
to build enough attainable homesfor people.
SPEAKER_01 (09:11):
Why is it not as simple as,
SPEAKER_00 (09:14):
just go build more houses?
The reality is a lot of it wouldbe that way if we would allow
folks to build, right?
And so there's a coupledifferent factors, and some that
we have control over and somethat we don't.
When we're talking about why arethere not enough homes or why
are homes so expensive, we talkabout these five factors L's.
(09:36):
Lending, labor, lumber, laws,and land.
All of those factor into housingcosts and whether you're
building something.
A lot of those, we, especiallyin New Hampshire, don't have
control over, right?
We're not really...
Mm-hmm.
(10:13):
there were all sorts ofdifferent types of housing
options out there that therewere...
In
SPEAKER_01 (10:17):
New Hampshire, there were different types of...
SPEAKER_00 (10:19):
In New Hampshire.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
And across the country.
I mean, we should say this isparticularly, I think, acute in
New Hampshire in terms of sortof where our numbers have always
been.
But this is a national problem.
And that's why you're seeingmore national conversations
around this and federally andjust sort of the dialogue out
there.
For a long time, folks were ableto build a second accessory
(10:42):
dwelling unit or a second homefor their in-law or for a family
member, or they were able tojust put duplex up.
And so they lived in a half andrented out the other half to
help pay for their costs.
Or they divided up their pieceof land and had a couple small
lots that were there becausefolks didn't need a huge track
(11:02):
of land, right?
And then in the 1960s, we reallystarted seeing a lot more of
that sort of exclusionary zoningpiece where folks were saying,
look, the only thing you canbuild is a large single family
home on a large lot.
And Not that all zoning isracist, but there is absolutely
a racial history behind zoningand especially the exclusionary
(11:24):
zoning piece of this.
And so we kind of went throughthis long process where there
was this idea that everyoneneeded their own single family
home.
And that was the only thing thatshould get built besides in some
sort of core city areas.
And that under building for along, long time has led us.
And so it's not to say that theanswer to everything is just
(11:47):
sort of let the market handleit, because we also need more
attainable options for folksthat need something other than a
million dollar home.
SPEAKER_01 (11:58):
I heard you say there's the exclusionary zoning
practices.
I serve...
on our town's budgetrecommendations committee.
That's one committee in our townwhere it's volunteers who come
together to try to solve thethings that are in front of our
town.
And I know one of thosecommittees is called the zoning
committee.
What is a zoning committee?
(12:18):
It sounds extremely boring.
I'm not
SPEAKER_00 (12:20):
going to lie to you.
You're saying it's boring comingfrom a budget committee member.
SPEAKER_01 (12:25):
Zing, Nick.
Yes, I love a spreadsheet, butwhat do they talk about in the
zoning committee?
I understand what I talk about,but what do they talk about?
SPEAKER_00 (12:32):
To kind of really nerd out, Yes.
Go for it.
Nerd out.
(13:04):
your town rules about what youcan build where.
And so it's literally what cango in there, but also how high
can it be?
What are the setbacks?
And so setbacks being like theside, how far away from your
neighbor's lot?
How big does your lot have to beto begin with to do anything?
How many parking spots do youneed to pave to be able to build
(13:26):
a home?
So all of this is in your town.
In
SPEAKER_01 (13:29):
our little town.
In your town.
There are these town rules thatsay you need to have this many
parking spots before you buildanything.
Right.
Or before you build specificthings.
SPEAKER_00 (13:36):
Exactly.
Exactly.
And it depends on which zoneyou're in.
So you understand why people getconfused when they try to do
something with their property,right?
And so if you are trying to dosomething that's outside of
those town rules, that's whenyou go to the zoning board.
And I sat on our city's zoningboard for a couple of years.
(13:57):
And so you get everything from,I'd like to build a deck, but
I'm a little bit too close to myneighbor's lot and I'm supposed
to have 20 feet, but I reallyhave 17 feet.
But you also get things like, Iwould like to build a sober
home, or I would like to build100 apartments, as opposed to
the density that would let mebuild 50.
And so you're getting a wholerange of how far outside of
(14:19):
those existing rules there are.
And so that's what the zoningboard does.
The planning board handles muchmore of sort of the within the
existing zoning framework,reviewing and asking questions
and doing sort of that vettingprocess that comes with before
you're trying to buildsomething.
SPEAKER_01 (14:35):
So these zoning boards, these planning boards,
they operate within, you know,the town level or the city
level.
How does the state factor intothis?
Because if you have some townsthat allow things and some towns
that don't, where does the statejump into
SPEAKER_00 (14:51):
this work?
I mean, this is one of thecentral sort of questions, you
know, when we get into sort ofthe housing policy piece at the
state level is, is like the bigissue is this idea of local
control.
And like, who's decision is itto allow for what can be built?
Right now on most of these,municipalities could already do
(15:12):
them, but sometimes they do not.
That practice of preventingcertain types of things from
being built has statewide policyimplications.
And so one example of that isthis bill that's been moving
through the process, House Bill631.
This is sponsored byRepresentative Allie Murray from
Manchester.
It's kind of dubbed the HomesNear Jobs bill because it's
(15:34):
allowing for Multifamily, whereyou allow for retail or office
space, taking those aging stripmalls and putting housing on top
of them or taking a older officebuilding and turning them into
apartments, which obviously notalways the easiest thing to do,
but it just would allow you todo it.
What would then happen is thatwould be state policy.
You have to allow that.
(15:55):
But then the municipality wouldstill sort of say, okay, well,
you can't go over this height.
You have to have this manyparking spots.
That's where we start to talkabout, well, what is the
interplay between localcommunities and the state when
it comes to these policies?
And so this is sort of asituation of starting to put
some guardrails on how far arewe going to go and what are some
(16:16):
baseline principles that we'regoing to sort of say everyone
has to abide by these and thenyou can implement them as your
community sees fit, right?
It's like this housing shortagein and of itself is a state
issue.
It's not just a Manchester issueor an Exeter issue or a Keene
issue, right?
It's not just a city issueeither.
It's smaller municipalities thatcan't find a fire chief or
(16:39):
teachers to teach in theclassroom because there's no
homes available, right?
And so there's sort of that bigpicture idea of like, what does
local control mean?
Does it mean individual propertyrights?
Does it mean central planning.
You talk about those issues, butlike when you actually think
about sort of the practicalimplications of New Hampshire
communities, you got to balancethose and you got to find that
(17:02):
happy medium that says, look, wecan't go town by town and have
everyone individually changetheir policies.
There's got to be someoverarching guiding principles
that we have as a state thatsays you should be allowed to do
this.
Municipality go implement it,how you see fit, but within
those barriers.
And we've done this before.
You know, there's sometimes thisidea of, well, local control,
(17:24):
especially on housing and zoningis sacrosanct in New Hampshire,
right?
But that's not really the case.
When now U.S.
Senator Maggie Hassan wasgovernor, she signed the first
ADU law in New Hampshire.
And ADUs are accessory dwellingunits, often sort of in-law
apartments.
And that allowed for ADUs to beattached to single family homes
(17:44):
and said, you know, you've gotto allow Right.
(18:08):
okay, this is something that wevalue as a full state.
Let's go allow you to implementit locally.
And that's sort of where theseconversations are coming up till
now and saying, let's extendthat to allow detached ADUs.
So like a structure that's not abasement or an attic or attached
garage, but maybe it's a barnand maybe that should be allowed
to be an accessory dwellingunit.
(18:28):
And right now about Half the NewHampshire communities allow it
and half don't.
And so that's just saying like,look, again, we got to move that
ball forward.
SPEAKER_01 (18:36):
What is the rationale for not allowing it?
Like what arguments are made tosay, no, we don't think you
should be allowed to transformyour barn into a living space
for somebody else
SPEAKER_00 (18:50):
yeah i mean that that's a great question right
and so like i've
SPEAKER_01 (18:53):
been practicing my question
SPEAKER_00 (18:54):
that's what we're here for i mean so like there's
like there's a couple piecessometimes it's just the fact
that updating all these zoningordinances is also confusing and
tough and you have hundreds ofpages of of zoning regulations
that it becomes you know justlike a inertia problem right of
like you need someone who'sgonna go in there and sort of
champion it and want to make thechange and and all that.
(19:16):
But you also run into situationswhere folks like, look, change
is hard.
There's a general feeling of Iam here.
Things are going well.
Why would we rock the boat onthis?
And that's where you start toget into some challenges around
municipal government and justgovernment in general, where the
(19:36):
folks who have time to show upto that zoning board meeting or
show up to that planning boardmeeting or serve.
SPEAKER_01 (19:42):
Or know what a zoning
SPEAKER_00 (19:44):
board or planning board
SPEAKER_01 (19:45):
is.
SPEAKER_00 (19:46):
Yeah.
If you've got time to be doingthat, you're probably less
worried about putting food onthe table and where are you
going to sleep at night and allof that.
Not to say that everyone thatserves on these boards is not
well-intentioned, but therecertainly are some
well-intentioned folks and somefolks that I think would love to
learn more.
But you do absolutely have somepeople that sort of say, look, I
(20:08):
This town was perfect the day Imoved here, and I don't want to
see it change.
SPEAKER_01 (20:12):
Because I moved here.
Right.
Because I arrived
SPEAKER_00 (20:15):
perfect.
I arrived here.
The town had never been betterat that moment.
That's
SPEAKER_02 (20:19):
right.
SPEAKER_00 (20:20):
And I'm never going to do anything about it.
And it was really interesting.
We had a public hearing on abill this year, and you had
someone who was testifying onthe bill.
And they were in opposition toit.
It was a bill that would changesome zoning rules.
laws and the person was tearingup and they were saying, look,
this change of the community, Iwant to be able to hand this
(20:42):
community down to my kids andhave them live there.
And you had a member of theHouse Housing Committee who
said, it's really interestingyou bring that up because I'm in
support of this bill for thatexact same reason is I'm worried
my kids won't have a place tolive that they can afford in
this community.
And so you get people thatsometimes are coming in and are
afraid of that change and don'tknow what it will look like.
(21:04):
And You have the other folks whoare coming in and saying, look,
we're going to grow.
The question is, how are wegoing to do it?
And how do you balance sort ofthe things we all love about New
Hampshire and our communitieswith the need for more housing
options?
And oftentimes those thingsaren't in conflict with each
other.
There's ways to do this thatmake sense and are thoughtful
(21:26):
and smart.
And when we start to allow formore density in certain areas,
it also allows us to have moreconservation in other areas,
right?
And so you sort of go againstthese just like urban sprawl and
suburban sprawl and all of that.
But basically, you get down tothis idea of change and how
tough that is for people.
And certainly, there are stillsome folks that would prefer to
(21:49):
keep no new people moving in.
SPEAKER_01 (21:51):
Don't want to become another state that might be
towards the south.
Let's say...
I am upset.
I've heard you talk about this,Nick.
I'm mad.
I'm like, wait, I think my towndoesn't let me do this.
Right.
How do those rules change?
How does a town decide theirrules are outdated or they need
(22:11):
to revisit them?
What is the process for makingchange in a local community?
Because that's as local as youcan possibly get.
SPEAKER_00 (22:18):
Planning boards can initiate in towns.
So the towns that have a townmeeting process, planning boards
can initiate- zoning changesthat then go to the full town
meeting for approval by everyonein the municipality.
And they can only change themonce a year.
I mean, it has to be that townmeeting process.
And so I would encourage folksto either run or get appointed,
(22:41):
if it's an appointed position,to your local land use boards.
You can make a real differencefor people in advancing some of
these policies.
But also talk to existingmembers and ask them about it
and take a look at your localregulations.
And there's this new tool thatSt.
Anselm College has put together,the New Hampshire Zoning Atlas,
that actually allows you tovisualize this.
(23:03):
And that it used to be the onlyway to do it was to actually go
in and read these huge documentsthat are very legalese.
And now there's a great map andyou can just click and say-
SPEAKER_01 (23:14):
If you're looking for a good beach read, your
SPEAKER_00 (23:16):
ordinances.
Yeah, get involved.
I mean, get on the planningboard.
You actually, you can have ahuge difference about how things
look and so much of how ourcommunities end up are because
of the zoning regulations thatwe have.
I mean, people build to what youallow, right?
And so if you want to see moremixed use where there's shops on
the first floor and apartmentson the second floor, like zone
(23:38):
for it and allow it and you'llstart to get it and encourage,
you know, your state legislatorsto support policies that allow
for these additionalflexibilities.
And so that's how you can takethese issues at the state and
local level and try to make adifference with them.
SPEAKER_01 (23:52):
We've talked a lot about the local level, which is
great because I think there'snot enough conversations out
there in general about what canhappen in your own town and
community.
But also what happens with thestate?
We sort of touched on a littlebit of it, but what has the
state done or what has the statenot done when it comes to
housing?
SPEAKER_00 (24:10):
So there's this sort of state regulatory policy where
you can sort of say you have toallow for this.
And that's one thing the statecan do.
The state has also passed thishousing champions program in the
last budget that Senator RebeccaPerkins-Quokka has long been a
leader of.
And this is an incentive-basedprogram that essentially says,
if you take pro-housing steps,and some of this is local zoning
(24:32):
ordinances, some of this is justapprovals and trainings.
If you take some of those steps,you become a housing champions
community and you get access toadditional grants and that you
can use for infrastructureinvestments or sidewalks or
whatever you want to do withthem.
But essentially taking thatcarrot approach of saying, if
you do something good, we willdangle some money in front of
you and help make it easier.
(24:54):
Good job.
SPEAKER_01 (24:54):
Thumbs up.
Here's a treat.
Yes.
SPEAKER_00 (24:56):
Exactly.
Then the other piece that thestate could play a role in is
the below market rate housing.
And so the things we've talkedabout so far in terms of
Accessory dwelling units ormixed-use housing, again, where
there's residential andcommercial in the same area, all
of those are sort of market ratebut attainable.
(25:17):
They're just naturally moreaffordable options.
There's also below-market-ratehousing that requires some sort
of, generally speaking, somesort of financial incentive.
And the state has really onemain tool that it uses
effectively.
to incentivize and help make themath work on these developments.
And that's the AffordableHousing Fund.
SPEAKER_01 (25:38):
All right.
I want to jump in for a secondbecause you said Affordable
Housing Fund.
I see that phrase affordablehousing a lot.
And I have wondered, is it atechnical term?
Is it a legal term?
Or does it just mean like myhousing is not super expensive?
I'm feeling pretty good.
What does that phrase actuallymean?
SPEAKER_00 (25:57):
Yeah.
The housing glossary challengesare real.
And we can- Show notes, just aglossary of 85 terms.
Exactly.
Because it is usedinterchangeably all the time.
And so there's a couple of waysto think about it.
Affordable housing, lowercase a,that's just like affordable, is
(26:18):
you can have affordable housingfor anybody at any income level
because generally affordabilityis defined by HUD and it's
generally best practices around30% of your income going to
housing and no more than that.
Now, a lot of folks-
SPEAKER_01 (26:33):
30% or less of your income-
SPEAKER_00 (26:35):
Going to your all-in housing costs.
Yeah, absolutely.
Then it is, quote unquote-Affordable, lowercase a.
(27:02):
going to your all-in housingcosts.
Capital A affordable housingfund generally connotes some
sort of legal financialincentive that you're going into
as the developer to develophousing that is affordable using
that 30% threshold to some levelof the area median income.
(27:23):
If you're in the Boston HUDregion, the number is going to
be a little bit higher.
The Portsmouth region is alittle bit higher than it is up
in the of what you could chargeand who you're renting it to.
And so if you're using thataffordable housing fund and
you're a developer and you'resaying, I'm going to do 20 homes
at...
50% area median income or less.
(27:45):
And so you go over and you sortof say 50% of the area median
income in Manchester, I can'tcharge more than whatever 30% of
that is for my affordable piece.
SPEAKER_01 (27:56):
So what is in Manchester to qualify would be
different than Portsmouthbecause of the median income
being different within those twoareas.
SPEAKER_00 (28:05):
Exactly.
SPEAKER_01 (28:06):
And then different in Berlin in the North country.
Exactly.
SPEAKER_00 (28:09):
And so the state affordable housing fund, which
is administered by new hampshirehousing is low interest loans
and grants for below market ratehousing and so this is things
that are required to be set at alower cost and oftentimes
there's income verification tomake sure that you know
whoever's living in them youknow qualifies and is truly sort
(28:30):
of making at whatever level thethe sort of proposal originally
had that got the approval and sothe state affordable housing
fund is a big big tool when itcomes to being able to do this
Now, there's also a whole bunchof federal programs that folks
also use to develop affordablehousing, and New Hampshire
Housing administers a lot ofthose locally, too.
(28:52):
The financial incentive piece isa big issue around the state
budget every two years andaround additional funding.
sort of appropriations.
(29:31):
Who are the folks who areworking on this?
Who are the movers and shakers,whether it's at the local level
or at the state level, who areadvocating for the legislature
to step up and continue
SPEAKER_01 (29:44):
to fund that, increase the annual
appropriation from the realestate transfer tax, and make an
additional appropriation intothe fund in this budget cycle?
trying to solve.
I don't even know if it'spossible to solve, but trying to
work on this housingaffordability, housing
availability options.
SPEAKER_00 (30:00):
It's great.
I mean, there's a really broadcoalition who are concerned
about this and it's starting tocome up even more and more when
people are asking theirmemberships, like what issues do
you care about?
It's really interesting.
And I'll talk a little aboutsort of the legislative
coalitions as well as sort ofthe outside the dome The regular
people.
(30:46):
their kids and so that they canhandle some of the child care
and be around the family.
Just had that episode
SPEAKER_01 (30:51):
a few weeks ago, needing child care.
Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_00 (30:53):
You start to solve a lot of these other problems by
kind of going back to some ofthe intergenerational living and
some of the different options orjust having some additional
independence but flexibility.
And so we've worked also on theADU bill with the disability
rights community because that'sanother great way to either have
some independence for an adultchild who can live independent
(31:16):
Right.
Right.
law as well.
The business community, this isan issue where they are hearing
(31:39):
time and again from theirmembers and their businesses and
the large employers in NewHampshire that they can't find
workers to be able to grow.
And so you have the Chambers ofCommerce and the BIA working on
this too.
And certainly, there's somegreat work being done by Stay
Work Play and 603 Forward andForward Foundation and the youth
(32:00):
movement and some of the othersort of younger organizers who
are hearing from that workingage, young adults, folks who are
just graduating college orentering the workforce from the
trades who are saying, where'smy opportunity to live here?
I want to stay, but I can'tpossibly afford it.
So it's a really broad coalitionof organizations who are doing
(32:21):
this work.
There's also some incredibleinstitutional players who do
some of the lending on this thatare doing great work.
I mean, New Hampshire Housing asboth a lender and an educator on
the work that they do with thefinancing piece, but also the
research piece to make sure thatfolks have the best up-to-date
data.
You know, the CommunityDevelopment Finance Authority,
(32:41):
they do some great work to helpsort of turn old mill buildings
and other tax credit programsthat help revitalize things.
So then all of this comestogether into some really
interesting coalitions at thelegislative like under the dome
state house level work and a lotof it depends a little bit on
like is this a funding bill isthis a regulatory bill but you
(33:01):
know we've seen some of theregulatory you know like
allowing for accessory dwellingunits or allowing the homes to
be built near jobs pass withhalf of the Republican caucus
and two-thirds of the Democraticcaucus.
And so you end up in thesecoalitions that are unlike so
many other sort of the hotbutton issues of the day, right?
(33:22):
Because you have some folks whoare coming at this from the
moral imperative of not pullingthe ladder up when you got there
and allowing people to have moreoptions and looking out for your
neighbors.
And you have some folks who arecoming at this from a property
rights perspective of like, Ishould be able to do what I want
with my property.
And it leads to some reallyinteresting coalitions.
(33:45):
There's that
SPEAKER_01 (33:45):
word interesting.
The word interesting does a lotof heavy lifting in a lot of
these episodes, that's for sure.
Do you see things moving in theright direction this year?
Are we going to see a noticeabledifference this year?
Is it going to take some time?
What happens next?
You've got these interestingcoalitions working together.
(34:08):
What is the path forward fromhere?
SPEAKER_00 (34:10):
Thank you so much.
Some have made it through bothchambers and we'll have to deal
with the committee orconference.
SPEAKER_01 (34:30):
Right.
When the two sides, the twochambers get together in a room,
they're like, all right, let'sduke this out in a committee.
Let's do this.
SPEAKER_00 (34:37):
Exactly.
And then things will go to thegovernor and she will have to
sign some of these regulatorybills if they're going to have
an impact.
That piece is still TBD, butthere's a lot of progress there.
The funding piece is essentialto be able to hit that whole
thing.
housing continuum when it comesto the affordability piece, when
it comes to making sure that ouremergency shelters are funded,
(35:00):
that the transitional housingand supportive housing options
are funded.
And so you can't have onewithout the other.
And it's not going to be asuccessful session unless we get
both through because we've gotto be able to hit folks at all
levels of the income spectrumwho are struggling with this.
The other challenge is And whatI think makes housing such a
tough, in some ways, sort ofpolitical challenge to solve is
(35:23):
that, you know, it took usdecades to get here.
It's going to take us a longtime to get out.
Even if you pass, you know, someof these proposals and you fund
the Affordable Housing Fund.
Projects still need to get builtand there needs to be land and
there's got to be that turnover.
People got to want to do it.
And there absolutely is somesort of pent up demand to be
(35:45):
able to go ahead and do more ofthese projects.
But even then they take years toget through oftentimes sort of
the planning process and thenactually getting them built and
getting the materials and theconstruction workers and all of
that.
It makes it really challengingthat you can have a great
session Right.
Yeah.
(36:06):
Yeah.
a huge package of policies, butit does point us in the right
(36:27):
direction.
And that I am absolutelyoptimistic about.
SPEAKER_01 (36:30):
We didn't get into the unhoused population.
And that might just need to be awhole other episode, honestly,
because it's such a hugecomponent when we think about
there's not very much housingout there.
And there are folks who areliving in their cars, living in
hotels.
And, you know, maybe you coulddo like a little preview for a
one day episode, but like, Whenpeople think of homeless folks
(36:52):
or unhoused folks, they think ofpeople on sidewalks or maybe in
tents.
But so many of them, they havejobs, they're sleeping in their
cars, they're in a hotel.
So what does the state do or notdo for those folks?
We
SPEAKER_00 (37:05):
have to do more, no doubt about it.
And I'm really glad you broughtup the point of how this shows
up in a lot of differentcommunities because you do hear
it.
You hear from folks that say,oh, I don't think that's an
issue in my community or even inNew Hampshire.
That is a big city issue thatwe're not dealing with.
Right.
And that's not true.
(37:26):
It's like in all of ourcommunities, there are folks who
are living in their cars orsleeping in a tent or couch
surfing friend to friend.
So many of us out there are sortof one financial challenge away
from being there.
When we think about it, itreally is an issue that is
impacting New Hampshire and it'sincreasing.
Ultimately, homelessness is ahousing issue and that
(37:48):
ultimately, if you're going toget out of this, you just need
more housing.
homes that are affordable forpeople.
And that is the best sort oflong-term stability piece.
But in the interim, we need tomake sure that the shelter
capacity is there, right?
And that right now we have 13state-funded shelters are
getting pennies on the dollarfor how much it actually costs
(38:11):
to house somebody under theirroof and their shelter programs
that is coming through thestate.
Department of Health and HumanServices.
You also hear about some of thechallenges with the voucher
program where folks may have avoucher, but we allow in New
Hampshire for income-baseddiscrimination.
And so you could have someonethat gets denied solely because
(38:33):
they are trying to pay with avoucher.
In a number of other states,that is illegal.
You can't discriminate onsomeone just because they're a
voucher holder.
And so you have folks who get avoucher and they've waited years
on these
SPEAKER_01 (38:46):
lists.
A specific housing.
SPEAKER_00 (38:48):
A specific housing voucher.
Yeah, yeah.
Section 8.
It's a federal housing voucher,but it is used through–
administered locally througheither New Hampshire Housing or
a local housing authority.
And they're waiting years andyears for a voucher.
They finally get one and theycan't find a place that will
either accept the voucher or is–rented at the level that the
voucher will pay for, right?
(39:09):
Because the voucher is alsocapped at a certain amount.
It's not just a, you can go livewherever and we'll pay whatever,
right?
And so like that is a realchallenge.
And this is also where you startto touch on the federal
uncertainty and the HUD cutsbecause so much of the sort of
funding at that level is alsocoming from the federal
(39:30):
government.
And folks are really worriedabout that, rightly so.
SPEAKER_01 (39:35):
Rightly so.
Yeah, there are a lot of changesthat are going to impact people.
Definitely.
Nick, thank you so much forsharing more about like, why
don't we have enough housing inthe state?
What folks are doing about it,whether it's your organization
or lawmakers or how to getinvolved at the local level.
And queuing up another hugeissue, which is the for folks
who are unhoused, unsheltered,like, you know, I think that's a
(39:58):
whole other episode that we needto dig into.
But thank you for sort ofenlightening us to get started
in that way.
So thank you for being
SPEAKER_00 (40:04):
here.
Of course.
Liz, thanks for hosting thisconversation, for inviting me
on.
I mean, it really was such a funtime to talk through these
critical issues that are facingNew Hampshire, what we can do
about it, and how we're going tomake progress by working
together.
SPEAKER_01 (40:19):
Everyone should go find their planning board and
zoning board.
Read all of the rules thissummer.
Liz Canada's summer readinglist, or at least if this is
something that you care about,you're someone they can reach
out to.
SPEAKER_00 (40:30):
Absolutely.
So folks who are interested inlearning more about this,
definitely reach out to us.
They're Housing Action NewHampshire.
If you're looking for somethingeven in your community, we can
help put you in touch with folkswho are doing this work on the
ground in your town or in yourregion to be able to help you
through it.
And if you don't want to readyour full zoning-
SPEAKER_01 (40:50):
Why wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_00 (40:51):
Ordinances.
You can go to the Zoning Atlas.
Nick, don't
SPEAKER_01 (40:54):
talk it down.
Talk it up.
It is exciting, riveting.
SPEAKER_00 (40:58):
Right.
Tables of dimensions, plotsizes, setbacks.
It's a real party trick.
Right into the show, what wasyour
SPEAKER_01 (41:05):
favorite zoning ordinance that you read this
summer?
That's what we're going to havein the fall.
You don't have to start fromsquare one.
You don't have to try to figureit out on your own that your
organization is here and you allare already plugged in and can
plug people in.
We'll have in the show notesyour charts and graphs that if
this were a video podcast...
We would have blown
SPEAKER_00 (41:24):
everyone's minds.
Right.
Wait till the YouTube channelstarts to blow up.
We'll come back.
We'll walk through the slidedeck, all the numbers.
SPEAKER_01 (41:32):
Next slide, please.
It'll be perfect.
SPEAKER_00 (41:34):
That'll get people to tune out.
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