Last year, a bipartisan majority of legislators agreed to legalize manufactured homes in all residential zones in the state. But it never happened. Though House Bill 685 passed both chambers on voice votes, it died in conference committee.
The bill was an effort to open the housing market to a cheaper, smaller form of residential dwelling that could provide entry-level options for Granite Staters priced out of the current market.
Where New Hampshire failed, Congress has stepped in.
A new definition of manufactured homes
The federal 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, now law, changes the federal definition of a manufactured home.
Until now, manufactured homes legally had to be mobile, meaning they had to be built on a permanent chassis. The chassis requirement is gone, which gives consumers more options.
The law further requires states to update their statutes to comply with federal law. New Hampshire’s definition of a manufactured home includes the chassis requirement, so that will have to change in the next legislative session.
This doesn’t mean that manufactured homes will have to be allowed in all residential zones. But once they are no longer attached to wheels, it will be only a matter of time before the justification for segregating them into separate residential zones will fade.
Tiny homes and yurts
This week, Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed a bill that creates a legal pathway for the construction of tiny homes and yurts as permanent residential structures in New Hampshire.
It should be legal to build a small home on land that you own. But American life has become so heavily regulated that even building a little house for yourself is of questionable legality.
That changes with the enactment of House Bill 1681. The bill defines both “tiny house” and “yurt” in law and sets a legal framework for their regulation at the state and local levels.
Those legal definitions, along with a regulatory structure built around them, provide clarity to builders and local governments. There’s now no question that people can build these small dwellings on their own land.
The bill defines a “tiny house” as a detached, permanent residential dwelling that is 600 square feet or less (excluding lofts), “complies with the tiny home provisions of the state building code,” and is built “on a stable ground surface or foundation.”
It also legalizes a “tiny house on wheels,” or “THOW,” which is defined as “a tiny house built on a trailer chassis without motive power.”
The yurt is now defined in state law as “a style of tiny house that is a round or similar shape and is a freestanding structure modeled after traditional nomadic dwellings, constructed with contemporary materials and engineering for use as a permanent or long-term residence.”
So if you’ve always wanted to live in a modern version of an igloo, teepee or native yurt, you’re in luck!
Legalizing the American Dream
From the start, American culture has embraced the idea that in this country you are free to build a life for yourself from scratch. Buying some land and building a home, however modest, has always been considered an emblem of the American Dream.
But over the last century, governments have regulated the use of private land to such a degree that achieving the American Dream in this traditional way is nearly impossible in many parts of the country.
That includes New Hampshire, where legislators had to pass a law—250 years after the birth of the country—just to make clear that people are free to buy a plot of land and build a modest home for themselves.
Obstacles to achieving this dream remain. Though these smaller, cheaper homes will soon be an option, minimum lot sizes can keep them out of reach.
The state might allow you to build a 600 square foot house, but if the local government requires you to buy a two-acre lot for it, then you’re still priced out of this entry-level home.
Lawmakers of both parties have worked together to make real progress in the last few years in cutting back the thicket of regulations that chokes the state’s housing market. But more work remains.
