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CONCORD, NH – Ellen Read and Joe Alexander don’t agree on much.
In the primary, mailers attacked Read, a Newmarket Democrat, as the “AOC of N.H.” In his three terms in the House, Alexander, a Goffstown Republican, has quickly risen through party ranks. Both voted along party lines over 94 percent of the time last session.
Neither skip a beat when saying New Hampshire has a housing crisis. Together they can agree that the state needs immediate solutions to build more units and lower costs. That work can be prioritized by a permanent Standing Committee on Housing in the State House – which representatives will vote to establish on Organization Day on Dec. 4.
A Standing Committee on Housing would cement the work of a recent one-term special committee, which was established for the first time last session.
Both Alexander, who chaired the committee, and Read, who was a member and introduced several bills, thought the creation of the group was a public acknowledgment that the state had a housing crisis. To them there was a clear consensus at the end of the session – the group was a success, but they’ve barely gotten started.
“What we definitely have done is brought a lot of attention to it and I think that was a lot of the goal too,” said Alexander. “I think whether it has moved the needle yet, I think we’ve definitely brought attention to it.”
The first biennium was marked with historic investments in housing in the state budget and the formation of the new committee. Lawmakers and advocates hoped 2024 would be the year of housing in the Legislature, with a record number of bills introduced as well.
But most failed to make it off the House and Senate floors.
Out of 55 bills introduced related to affordable housing and property rights, Gov. Chris Sununu signed 16 into law, according to summaries from Citizens Count. The proposals were also assigned to a dozen committees.
The new committee would pull bills into one centralized place.
With the special committee, members became experts on regulatory hurdles to housing development and passed several bills from adjusting sprinkler requirements to reducing the number of required parking spaces.
The committee’s work had a narrow focus, though. Landlord-tenant law was still under the jurisdiction of House Judiciary. Zoning reforms fell under Municipal and County Government.
While committee members became familiar with some solutions to address the housing crisis, their work was limited to a small sliver.
Now, the committee’s scope will become all-encompassing. To Read, this is a welcomed change.
“We passed quite a number of meaningful reforms that other committees that these bills had gone to previously had killed,” she said. “A specific specialized committee on housing is required to take us in a different direction than other committees and other members on those past committees have taken us in order to address the housing crisis, which is the biggest crisis in this state.”
Estimates help quantify the housing crisis. New Hampshire Housing predicts a need to build 60,000 units by 2030 and 90,000 units by 2040. Median home prices continue to exceed $500,000, while rental vacancy rates remain below 1 percent.
It’s not a problem that evolved overnight, either. Read views it as the consequences of decades of policy decisions that lawmakers have failed to counteract.
“By continuing those policies with those same committees and those same members on those committees, we are not going to dig ourselves out of the hole,” she said. “We cannot continue to do the same things and expect different results.”
She hopes the new housing committee will help shift the focus, with more legitimacy, especially with their Senate counterparts.
“We are the only legislative entity that is laser-focused on housing,” she said. “We will have to be the go-to people for any proposals that come out of the Senate as well, so it forces the Senate to come to the table on housing issues.”
When Alexander convened the special committee last session as chair, he had one initial goal: to listen. He invited a series of subject matter experts to break down possible zoning changes, regulatory hurdles and affordable housing incentives. The group did not consider legislation until 2024.
With that approach, a bipartisan coalition was built, he said. Even though the committee’s purview will expand, he hopes to continue this same collaboration and recognize that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.
“We need to look at all of it as a holistic thing,” he said. “It’s all a piece of the puzzle.”
Both lawmakers can agree on one piece of the puzzle that needs to change – accessory dwelling units. Last year, Alexander and Read co-sponsored a bill that would have allowed two units by right. The proposal made it out of the House but was later killed in the Senate.
Both lawmakers have introduced the idea again with legislative service requests. Alexander said he hopes his proposal will be stronger this session, with Senate cosponsors.
“We’ve got to come together on that,” he said. “That’s my number one goal.”
While Alexander anticipates some topics – like landlord-tenant law – will draw more disagreement across party lines, he hopes that the committee will help centralize conversation and lead to potential concessions.
Last session, he sided with Democrats to support a bill that Read sponsored which required rental application fees to be returned to tenants if they did not rent to that person, which was signed into law.
Reimbursing rental fees can be the make or break for residents looking for a new apartment but that experience wasn’t reflected in testimony.
Read hopes to hear from more residents with the new committee.
“It’s super important for people struggling with housing issues, whether you’re struggling with a property you already own or struggling to buy or struggling with your landlord or struggling to find a rental, to follow the housing committee,” she said. “People need to show up and talk to us.”
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