The city of Dover established regulations to create higher-density housing. Farmington adjusted its zoning to allow attached and detached accessory dwelling units with a minimum of one parking space.
Those are just two examples of what Dover and Farmington, along with 16 other New Hampshire communities, did to earn their distinction as “Housing Champion” in 2024 in a program overseen by the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs (BEA).
The program — called the Housing Champion Designation and Grant Program — was funded with $5 million by the NH Legislature in 2023 as a way to encourage communities with incentives to address a critical statewide shortage of housing.
“This is part of what we are seeing in what I refer to as the ‘communities of the willing,’” said Taylor Caswell, BEA commissioner. “These communities have raised their hand and affirmatively said publicly, ‘yes, we are willing to play a part in addressing the housing crisis.’ That’s a big change from just a few years ago and a really critical part of the long term solution.”
There is no more important issue to Caswell than housing.
“Lack of housing is at the top of my list right now,” he said. “Any state needs a certain amount of migration to help employer workforce needs and revitalize communities, but without continued efforts to address this crisis, even baseline growth is likely to remain limited by the lack of housing.”
Caswell’s feelings about housing are grounded in a consensus among policymakers and residents that the state doesn’t have the volume of housing and types of housing needed to fill both the long-term and short-term needs.
Lack of housing weighs heavy on Granite Staters’ minds
A new survey from the New Hampshire Association of Realtors (NHAR) shows that the lack of housing — particularly the lack of affordable housing — weighs heavily on Granite Staters.
A December survey commissioned by the NHAR shows that 77% of those surveyed say that housing affordability is either a very (56%) or fairly (21%) big problem in New Hampshire, while only 7% called it a slight problem or not a problem at all.
The survey also found that the financial strain around housing has grown since 2019, and that confidence in moving to a satisfactory home has dropped substantially in that time.
“None of this comes as a huge surprise, but it does serve as more evidence that serious steps need to be taken to alleviate the housing crisis,” said Susan Cole, NHAR’s 2025 president. “We’ve watched our affordability index drop dramatically in the last five years, and the survey shows that New Hampshire residents are experiencing what we’re seeing in those numbers.”
The NHAR affordability index measures the median household income against the median-priced home under prevailing interest rates. An index of 100 means a household has exactly the correct amount of income to afford a residential property in a particular area.
According to the NHAR, that index number has dropped by more than half – from 130 to 60 – from 2019 to 2024, meaning that today the median household income in the state is just 60% of what is necessary to afford a median-priced home.
The median price of a single-family residential home was $514,000 in 2024, the highest in the state’s history, according to the latest association data.
Here are the 18 communities that received the Housing Champion distinction:
- Boscawen
- Concord
- Derry
- Dover
- Enfield
- Farmington
- Hinsdale
- Hooksett
- Jaffrey
- Keene
- Lebanon
- Manchester
- Nashua
- Newport
- Portsmouth
- Rochester
- Salem
- Somersworth
The Housing Champion program established a set of criteria with a community having to achieve a minimum overall score of 80 to qualify for the distinction. There were six categories, as follows (the first four being mandatory):
- Adopt land-use regulations.
- Train land-use board members.
- Implement water and sewer infrastructure upgrades, with points available for planned projects.
- Implement transportation and walkability infrastructure, with points available for planned projects.
- Financial incentives for housing.
- Other activities such as commissions and cross-community coordination.
Hookset, for example, has established a Tax Increment Financial District, according to BEA. TIFs, as they are known, are areas where a local government uses public funds to finance public and private projects in underutilized, distressed or underdeveloped areas.
With a Housing Champion (HC) designation, communities are eligible to apply for the Housing Infrastructure Municipal Grant, with $3.5 million available, and the Housing Production Municipal Grant, with $1.5 million available.
Caswell said he expects greater participation and more HC distinctions in 2025.
“We are aware of several communities that either just couldn’t turn around the application quickly enough or that need to wait for town meeting,” he said.
Where do ADUs fit in?
The NHAR survey also found broad support for local changes to zoning to make the regulations less restrictive, especially when it comes to attached and detached accessory dwelling units (ADUs).
State law currently allows attached ADUs by right, but many communities have strict zoning against or have outright banned detached ADUs.
The NHAR survey showed strong support for allowing attached (90% in favor) and detached (81% in favor) accessory dwelling units, and further support for the state Legislature to explore ways to allow building homes on lots smaller than one acre (66% in favor).
Respondents also indicated that creating affordable housing options is a more important priority than preserving New Hampshire’s rural characteristics, 52% vs. 32%.
Cole stressed that both are possible.
“We can provide more housing while protecting our state’s unique character,” she said. “Smaller lot sizes, more densely built, will preserve New Hampshire’s open spaces better than government mandating larger lots and bigger homes, which too often leads to sprawl eating up large tracts of land.”
“There’s a long way to go if we want to dig out of the inventory hole, so there is no single silver bullet,” Cole said. “But it was reassuring to see that the public recognizes the crisis, and that there is strong support for some of the legislative measures that can help.”
“If we attack the inventory problem, we are attacking the affordability problem, because it’s the same problem,” she added.
