RELEASE: UNH Report Shows Strong Support for Manchester Zoning Changes
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 11, 2024
CONTACT:
Matt Mooshian
(603) 454 - 8413
UNH Report Shows Strong Support for Manchester Zoning Changes
77% of Manchester residents agree, more homes are important.
MANCHESTER - The UNH Survey Center released the results of the 2024 City of Manchester Ordinance Survey which compiled public opinion on proposed zoning code changes, marking a significant benchmark in public engagement and consideration of the rules governing what housing options are legal to build and where. In response, the Manchester Neighbors Welcome coalition released the following statement with State Representative Alissandra Murray:
“The survey confirms a community consensus on the need for more housing,” said Jane Haigh, a representative from the Manchester Housing Alliance. “Respondents overall supported more housing, with 75% of respondents saying that duplexes fit very or somewhat well in their neighborhood, and 98% of renters saying it is important for the cost of homes to come down. Changing our laws to allow more homes to be built, of different sizes and prices, is critical to our future as a city. We call on the Zoning Ordinance Steering Committee and Board of Mayor and Alderman to update our zoning code to support housing development and increased affordability in Manchester.”
The Manchester Neighbors Welcome Coalition recognizes the many voices who shaped this survey over the past several months – our neighbors, community members, and people struggling to stay in this community. Through 99 pages of survey data, the report shows strong support for increased housing from a broad array of Manchester residents, young and old, renters and homeowners, and across all wards. As a coalition, we want to echo the support for growth and a city where everyone can enjoy its beauty.
“We’re calling on the Steering Committee to heed the warnings in this report - 89% of renters say housing costs in Manchester are not reasonable,” said housing advocate and Manchester State Representative, Alissandra Murray. “The report shows that strong majorities of Manchester residents feel it is important that the cost of housing in Manchester come down, that there be various types of housing available in the city, and that new housing is built.”
“While we know that homeowners and older adults are over-represented in this survey,” said Isabella Romero, a Manchester Neighbors Welcome coalition member, “we hope the Steering Committee and Board of Mayor and Alderman are paying attention to the public’s need for more homes, of all sizes and types, across our City. The Steering Committee should follow our Roadmap to More Housing for the Queen City and allow more homes - duplexes, townhomes, small and large apartments, in more areas of the city and allow ADUs by right everywhere. These changes are critical to bringing down the cost of housing in Manchester and maintaining sustainable growth across the city.”
The Manchester Neighbors Welcome Coalition represents a broad range of voices who recognize that everyone deserves access to a safe, affordable home near jobs, services, and opportunity. We want to help make Manchester a beautiful city for everyone to enjoy and walk around in. As we await action from the Zoning Ordinance Steering Committee, we believe the subsequent report from UNH will also demonstrate that the vast majority of Manchester residents recognize the need for new housing to bring costs down and make daily life more affordable in the Queen City. Read more about our recommendations on our website at www.manchesterneighbors.org.
BACKGROUND
Manchester is undergoing a comprehensive review of the city’s land use ordinances for the first time in over two decades. In June of 2024, the city published a draft with updates to the land use code and a schedule for public engagement, including public meetings and a city-wide survey.
The city worked with the UNH Survey Center to conduct a survey of Manchester residents to gain an understanding of their feelings about any potential zoning updates.
Over the summer of 2024, the city hosted public, community-wide meetings in each ward of the city to gather feedback and input from residents.
The city formed a Zoning Ordinance Steering Committee which will play an important role in shaping the updated land use code before it goes to the Board of Mayor and Alderman for final approval.
Following the release of this first report, the city is expected to release a second report with findings from the community meetings.
The Manchester Neighbors Welcome Coalition is convened by 603 Forward and New Hampshire Youth Movement. We support common-sense municipal zoning changes that will bring about more attainable housing choices for all Manchester residents.
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Paving Over Open Space: Part II
This is the second post in a series about parking reform as we explore the Manchester: Neighbors Welcome platform proposed by the City. Read part one here. In this post, we’ll share recommendations for what the Steering Committee should recommend to the BMA and provide additional resources about what happens after a city removes parking mandates.
One of the potential changes suggested in the City’s platform is to prevent paving over open spaces to build more new surface area parking lots downtown. However, the initial plan retains onerous and unnecessary parking mandates for new housing, paving over more space to add more unnecessary asphalt to Manchester, which we believe is a mistake.
What are our recommendations?
We recommend removing all mandates to pave over open spaces for new homes. In other cities and towns, this has made significant numbers of new homes possible.
By allowing more homes to be built, we’ll create more opportunities for everyone. Removing mandates to pave over open spaces (preventing more unnecessary asphalt) will also help Manchester move forward to manage our parking better — and can even be used to fund infrastructure improvements like bike lanes, walking paths, and transit.
What happens if we remove parking mandates?
We need to allow for smarter decisions around parking. Today, requiring a set amount of asphalt or pavement per home for new construction doesn’t allow for consideration of the location. For example, are there buses, bike lanes or walking paths nearby? Is the new home next door to an underutilized parking garage that might allow space rentals? Are the homes being built for seniors or people with disabilities who may have fewer cars than the average household? None of these factors come into consideration when the city mandates a certain amount of parking spaces.
Removing mandates does not mean new parking won’t be built. It means that property owners and builders can consider who will live in the homes and what is surrounding the homes. Cities that have removed parking mandates find plenty of parking is still being built - but less than before, and more dependent on the specific factors of each location. As noted in our last post, studies from Washington State, which removed parking mandates show that new housing has 40% less parking spaces than previously required - correlating with data that 40% of parking spaces sit empty at the most high demand times.
In addition, removing mandates allows Manchester to put in place a parking management system - one that can appropriately regulate parking demand downtown and in neighborhoods. Parking management systems - sometimes called parking benefit districts - have a range of benefits. We can design them to provide resident parking permits while either charging visitors for parking or limiting their stays in free parking. We can use them to better understand where and when there is a demand for parking in our neighborhoods and design solutions such as shared parking arrangements (when a parking lot might both be for local residents and visitors to neighborhood businesses). The proceeds from parking benefit districts can be used to fund needed improvements such as bike lanes, bus service, safety improvements, etc. Parking management systems will give us the data we need to better understand what Manchester needs for parking, and where.
Want to learn more?
Luckily, many other places have removed parking mandates before us, and a growing body of literature helps us evaluate their success. In 2017, Buffalo, NY became the first major American city to end parking mandates citywide. Since that time, other major cities including Anchorage, AK, Seattle, WA, St. Paul and Minneapolis, MN, and small towns in New Hampshire, Michigan, and Georgia. And yes, plenty of cities that get a lot of snow have removed parking mandates! And, check out this in depth report on parking mandates in Washington State.
Removing parking mandates is key to ensuring we have a range of small home types that meet people’s needs like duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes — those which might not be feasible if onerous, unnecessary mandates drive up the cost of construction, or we require large amounts of pavement on a lot where there isn’t space for off-street parking.
The Soapbox: A roadmap to more housing for the Queen City
Check out our opinion piece published recently in the Manchester Ink Link! Here is an excerpt:
This summer, Manchester residents have engaged in community conversations about what we want the future of our community to look like through a revision of our zoning code. Across wards, residents resoundingly voiced a desire for more affordable, accessible, livable, walkable, and vibrant housing for all neighbors.
As members of the Manchester Neighbors Welcome Coalition, we know that Manchester needs more homes at different prices and sizes for our current and future neighbors. Manchester is short 8,500 homes to meet today’s needs, to say nothing of the future. Rent for 2-bedroom apartments jumped over 20% last year. The average house costs over $180,000 more than four years ago…
Acres of Asphalt: Part I
So what does parking have to do with housing? In this first blog post, we’ll explore the connection between removing requirements for acres of asphalt and building more homes, and our recommendations to the Steering Committee and Board of Mayor and Aldermen related to parking.
In this series of blog posts, we’ll explore the Manchester: Neighbors Welcome platform for the new zoning code proposed by the City. After months of public engagement about why we need more homes and walkable communities, the Steering Committee, appointed by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BMA), is getting to work. Their task is to explore the perspectives raised in the community meetings and recommend changes to the suggested code to the BMA.
One of the potential changes suggested in the initial City draft is to prevent new surface parking lots from being built downtown. This is important - surface parking lots take up space that could be used to build walkable neighborhoods with businesses, restaurants, jobs, parks, and amenities, they’re expensive, and they’re dangerous for pedestrians and bicyclists.
While that’s a step in the right direction, the initial plan still retains onerous and unnecessary requirements for more asphalt outside of the downtown core. This is a mistake.
For every new home built in Manchester, our city zoning code today requires 2 parking spots . Depending on how it’s built, that’s between 575 and 800 square feet of asphalt when you count the actual physical space for your car plus the entry and exit lanes for each space.
Our recommendation is to remove all parking mandates for new homes across Manchester. In other cities and towns, such as Seabrook and Dover, the simple act of removing parking mandates has made significant numbers of new homes possible.
What does parking have to do with housing? Parking drives up the cost of housing by adding expensive requirements to new homes:
Excessive parking mandates compete for space with actual homes on the same piece of land, limiting the potential for more living space.
Many municipalities mandate certain levels of parking for each unit included in a new development. Manchester, for example, requires two parking spaces for every home. Each of these parking spots costs between $17,000 and $35,000 depending on the complexity of a structure — and they can take up as much space as a small, one bedroom apartment.
For every two parking spots required, you could be building another apartment. That’s a lot of asphalt that could be someone’s home.
Thanks to Parking Reform Network
Parking dramatically increases the cost to a tenant to rent an apartment, regardless of whether the tenant owns a car or not. When developers are required to build parking, they add it to the cost of the rent, charging all renters for the parking they were required to build. Parking can add up to 17% - an average of $200 - to the rent every month.
The costs and physical constraints imposed by parking mandates can mean that housing developments become infeasible. Allowing developers and residents to make choices about whether the want to add parking based on local circumstances is more effective and will result in more homes.
In order to allow more homes to be built, local leaders across the US are removing parking mandates, allowing property owners to choose for themselves whether to build parking and reduce the costs of the homes being built.
So how much parking exists in Manchester?
Plenty of parking exists in Manchester. Here is a map (thanks to the Parking Reform Network) of our surface parking lots in the downtown area alone. (Parking lots are marked in red.)
It’s important to remember four things about removing parking mandates:
All existing parking lots and spaces aren’t going anywhere. We’re talking about what happens moving forward.
Current mandates aren’t actually based on data. Across the Country, planners indicate that parking mandates in their community are based either on surveys of nearby cities or on a Traffic Engineering Handbook, not on actual data about our needs in Manchester.
New parking will still be built. Experiences from other cities show that parking lots and spaces are still being built, but it’s more connected to what is actually needed, rather than what is mandated. Studies from Washington State show that new housing being built has 40% less parking spaces than previously required. That correlates with data that show 40% of parking spaces sit empty at the most high demand times.
More housing is being built. Experiences from other cities and towns that have removed parking mandates show that more housing is being built. The housing now being built would likely not have been allowed under the previous rules but is now because the rules are more flexible, leading to more homes.
Check back soon for the second part in this series about parking, where we explore our recommendations further, and share what happens when cities and towns remove parking mandates.