Small Towns Look to Apartments for Housing

Freedom, NH sits in the middle of Carroll County just north of Ossipee.

It has just 1500 people on its voting list, and it’s not the first place to spring to mind when you think of apartment housing.

But Freedom is actually just the latest small town to become interested in what zoning boards call accessory dwelling units, or ADUs.

You and I might call them “in law” apartments or granny flats.
They are typically carved from single family homes or converted barns and garages.

Ned Hatfield is Freedom’s zoning code officer.

He began looking to ADUs as a possible way to bring more affordable housing to Freedom.

"Obviously the economic situation is one of the reasons, housing is expensive and young people can’t afford ‘em; if they could have an apartment, maybe that would help. Older people have the same situation with the money crunch. And it’s part of the big picture of, what are we going to do in the future of the town?”

Last week Hatfield began sent out an email asking for advice from other planning officials across the state.
The response was nearly unanimous.

From rural Dublin to industrial Nashua, town officials say these apartments can help balance tough economic realities with a very real need to fulfill affordable housing laws.

New housing statutes require that at least half of a town’s new construction must be affordable to a family making the town’s median income.

Or, in the case of rentals, new housing must be affordable to a family making 60% of the town’s median income.

New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority official Ben Frost says towns are looking for ways to meet the workforce housing laws.

But he adds, they’re also trying to meet the broader needs of their communities.

Frost:"As people age and they live in large homes where perhaps they don’t need as much space or can’t take care of that much space, allowing them to carve out a portion of their home to create an accessory dwelling unit in which they might live, and let someone else occupy a larger portion, it’s a great way to age in space."

But some towns worry that allowing people to carve up their homes might bring unwanted change.

Freedom’s Zoning Code Officer Ned Hatfield.

“We’re concerned that apartment buildings might change the rural character of the town. We’re a small town, and therefore it’s very important to us to see how we could be fair about this economically and yet maintain the rural character of the town.”

Hatfield is not alone.

Zoning officials can plan for new septic capacity and fire safety.

But small towns are anxious that the introduction of apartments could mean an increase in traffic, unwanted density, and of course, property taxes.

Francese: "These fears of destroying rural character or flooding the schools with kids or dramatically increasing the traffic on the streets are just bogus."

That’s Peter Francese of the New England Economic Council.

He says that these apartments are exactly what small towns so desperately need right now.

"They will not lose their rural character! But what they will do, those that allow accessory dwelling units, is contribute to the rebalancing of the human ecology of New Hampshire. That is, they will allow more young adults to remain in NH because there is an affordable place to live."

Every town that wants to include these accessory dwelling units writes its own zoning regulations for them.

They may differ over how tight restrictions should be.

Some require the renters be blood relatives of the owners.

Some have minimum acreage requirements.

And still others regulate the size the apartment.

But they all share a common goal.

They’re designed to keep apartments affordable and accessible without changing the town’s character.

For NHPR News, I’m Kathryn Wells.