6/13/25: Housing Matters Newsletter

Welcome to the Housing Matters Newsletter!

We’re in the final weeks of the legislative session. Thank you to all who have been following along and advocating over the last few months.

Yesterday, the House and Senate met to take up concurrence votes. Concurrence votes are when legislation has passed both chambers with different amendments and the two chambers must reconcile those differences. The original chamber can either agree to the changes (concur) and the bill heads to the Governor, oppose the changes and decline to negotiate (non-concur) and the bill dies, or disagree with the changes but continue negotiations (non-concur and request a committee of conference).

The House and Senate concurred on seven housing related proposals yesterday that will now go to the Governor.

• SB 188: Authorizes licensed third parties to certify documents and inspect buildings in compliance with applicable building and other codes.
• SB 282: Aligns the building code with the fire code to allow single-stair construction up to four stories, provided other safety conditions are met. This safely allows for multi-family construction on smaller lots.
• SB 283: Prohibits municipalities from including below-grade square footage in floor-area-ratio calculations.
• SB 284: Prohibits municipalities from requiring more than one parking space for any type of housing development. There is nothing in the bill that prohibits developers and property owners from building more parking, but it’s up to their needs, rather than regulatory requirements.
• HB 296: Allows more flexibility for granting building permits along private roads and requires that a ZBA hear an appeal within 30 days (current law is “a reasonable time”).
• HB 309: Prohibits landlords from requiring that tenants pay rent electronically. They must accept at least one non-electronic form of payment.
• HB 457: Prohibits municipalities from enforcing ordinances that are based on familial, occupational, or educational status and prohibits municipalities from enforcing ordinances that restrict the number of occupants of any dwelling unit to less than two occupants per bedroom.

These votes continue to show strong bipartisan support for increasing housing options and reducing unnecessary barriers to development.

Over the next week, House and Senate members will gather to negotiate on final committee of conference reports. There is more on the remaining bills we are tracking below.

As always, if you have questions about the legislation we mention in the newsletter or housing-related proposals that aren’t included, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

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Best,
Nick Taylor

Executive Director
Housing Action NH
nick@housingactionnh.org

There are six bills that we are watching throughout the committee of conference process.

• HB 1 and HB 2 (state budget): We don’t expect an opportunity to add funding to the budget, so we are focused on protecting the partially restored Housing Appeals Board (Senate position), maintaining the existing shelter SGIA funding (House and Senate position), maintaining the restored funding for transitional and supportive housing through mental health HHS grants (Senate position), maintaining permitting reform (House and Senate positions), and maintaining the wastewater infrastructure grants (Senate position).
• HB 60: This would overturn forty years of precedent and, as passed by the House, would allow tenants to be evicted for no-cause at the end of lease. We continue to believe the entire bill is unnecessary, but the Senate version is far better than the House version.
• HB 428: Prohibiting local amendments to the state building code.
• HB 685: Allowing manufactured housing where other single-family construction is allowed. This bill would end the discriminatory practice of treating manufactured housing differently than any other type of construction.
• SB 291: This was originally the Yes-In-God’s-Backyard bill to allow housing on religious land regardless of other zoning restrictions. The Senate and House significantly amended this bill, so neither chamber’s position is a high priority for us.

The House and Senate will not meet for session next week. The deadline to sign off on the Committee of Conference reports is 4 pm on Thursday, June 19th. The House and Senate will reconvene on Thursday, June 26th, for a final vote on all of the negotiated Committee of Conference reports.

As outlined in more detail above, the House and Senate agreed on seven housing related proposals yesterday SB 188, SB 282, SB 283, SB 284, HB 296, HB 309, and HB 457. The only concurrence vote we lost yesterday was on HB 342, which would have allowed property owners to bypass the variance process if density conformed to 51% of properties within a 1,000 sq ft radius. HB 342 also would have created a process for local governing bodies to create a clean energy zone for the purposes of the C-PACE program.

The Workforce Housing Coalition of the Greater Seacoast is hosting a Spring Policy Session on Tuesday, June 24th from 9:00 – 11:00 am in Portsmouth to review what happened this legislative session. You can register for this event here.