With the cost of buying or renting a home in New Hampshire more expensive than ever, affordable housing is a top issue in state political races this year. Nowhere is that more the case than in the race for governor, where Democrat Joyce Craig and Republican Kelly Ayotte both have personal — if distinct — stakes in the housing economy.
But the housing crisis is a national crisis, so the ability of any governor to bring forward sweeping change may be rather limited —especially in a state like New Hampshire that claims to value local control.
Here’s a breakdown of the candidates’ proposals, and their own financial stakes in the housing market.
Ayotte: ‘Build, baby, build’
Ayotte sometimes characterizes her approach to housing as “build, baby, build.” She also describes wanting an “all of the above approach” when it comes to increasing housing stock: more single-family homes, more multi-family developments, more manufactured housing.
Her use of phraseology borrowed from the debate over U.S. energy policy may be telling. At a minimum, it signals that Ayotte wants to lift regulation to foster better collaboration between state and local governments and developers.
She hasn’t supplied too many specifics, but one proposal she cites is a 60-day turnaround on state permitting approvals for any new housing. A bill Gov. Chris Sununu signed last month has already set just such a deadline for the Department of Transportation to approve driveway permits for new building projects. Ayotte suggests she’d take that approach further and apply it to more state agencies involved in development.
Another thing Ayotte talks about is targeting transportation and infrastructure money to build out sewer and utility connections to foster more development, but she hasn’t been very specific on the scope of what she might be envisioning.
One thing Ayotte does emphasize a lot when she talks about housing is that she respects local control. Local governments are where most decisions on housing developments get made. But the interplay between state and local imperatives is one thing that makes this a tricky issue, particularly for Republicans: They like lifting regulations and cutting red tape, but they also like honoring the will of local officials. Doing both doesn’t necessarily add up to the faster construction of more housing.
Craig: More mixed use zoning & in-law apartments
One aspect of Craig’s plan is to get more accessory dwelling units built on current home lots. These could be in-law apartments or freestanding structures, but they are essentially ways to allow more people to live on existing housing lots.
People in New Hampshire already have the right to build ADUs, subject to municipal requirements. But what Craig is shooting for is to make it harder for communities to shut down potential ADUs based on local requirements. Craig’s proposal is similar to a bill lawmakers debated this year. But at a time when experts say New Hampshire needs tens of thousands new homes just to keep up with demand, making it easier for people to add an apartment over their garage is unlikely to make a huge dent in that number.
Another thing Craig wants are caps on the number of parking spaces cities and towns can require for apartment buildings. Under a law enacted this year, local governments are currently barred from requiring more than 1.5 parking spaces per dwelling in developments with 10 or more units. Craig would apparently seek to tighten that number even further.
Craig also wants more mixed use zoning, which would make it easier for developers to build housing among commercial and retail districts. People involved in housing policy say those sorts of changes could be useful. particularly for larger projects.
More state money
Both Craig and Ayotte talk about more state financial involvement as key to breaking the current housing gridlock. That includes boosting support for the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority’s Affordable Housing Fund. They also talk about using tax credits to spur developers to begin more ambitious housing projects. But neither has spelled out a number for how much money they think is needed to have an impact.
What’s going on elsewhere in New England
Vermont and Maine have already taken more dramatic action on the housing front. Both states have worked to curtail single family zoning, a change that could make it easier for developers to get multi-unit projects built. In Vermont, cities and towns are required to allow buildings with up to four units to be built anyplace that’s served by public water and sewer lines. Vermont has also ended the right to appeal zoning permits for affordable housing on the grounds a project wouldn’t fit the “character” of the area.
Maine has moved aggressively to serially boost financing of affordable housing. Both Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, and Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, have worked to build bipartisan support for new housing policies.
Craig and Ayotte have financial ties to housing economy
Both candidates have personal stakes in the housing market, in very different ways.
Since 2019, Ayotte has sat on the nine-member board of the multi-billion dollar private equity firm Blackstone, the largest landlord in the country. Ayotte’s compensation for this work has been $544,000 in cash, and millions more in stock. The United Nations, among other critics, has called out Blackstone for contributing to the global housing crisis, including buying up foreclosed properties in bulk and raising rents, with little regard for the impact on tenants.
Ayotte — and Blackstone — argue that critique is overblown, with Ayotte stressing that Blackstone’s New Hampshire holdings amount to a handful of buildings in Durham, Nashua and Lebanon. But it’s a fact that she’s still earning big money from one of the nation’s biggest landlords when high local rental costs are widely viewed as a crisis.
Meanwhile, Craig and her husband Michael own rental properties, including a house with three apartments in Manchester, and a seven-unit mixed-use building in neighboring Goffstown. The Craigs have owned both properties for years, and neither is subject to code violations, according to local records.
According to the Craig campaign, the tenants in Manchester include Craig’s mother and one of her daughters. But these are valuable assets — Craig’s Manchester building is assessed at $478,000; the building in Goffstown is valued at $657,000 — at a time when the median home price in New Hampshire recently pushed past half a million dollars for the first time.
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