CONCORD, NH - Gov. John Lynch signed two bills yesterday that are meant to ease the development of affordable housing throughout the state. The new laws firm up assessment methods on rental housing and clear the way for towns to set up and fund workforce housing commissions. Taken with a bill Lynch signed June 30, the new laws create an environment more friendly to workforce housing developers. Affordable housing for state workers has been a priority with advocates for low-income families and the business community for years.
Lynch said the state has worked hard to improve schools and provide workers with better skills, but housing remains an issue. "Many families are increasingly priced out of New Hampshire's housing market," Lynch said. "Business cannot expand if the workforce is not available." The lack of affordable housing for new workers has cost the state roughly 2,800 jobs a year, he said.
Senate President Sylvia Larsen, D-Concord, has worked to improve workforce housing availability since 1996 and been on two study commissions in that time. "This year we truly made some progress," she said. "What we've accomplished is to put decent and affordable housing within reach of New Hampshire families."
The new laws allow local governments to set up housing commissions and housing loan funds; simplify the assessment of properties built under a federal low-income tax credit program; adopt the holdings of a New Hampshire Supreme Court ruling that said local zoning ordinances must provide developers "realistic and reasonable" chances to build affordable housing; and establish faster appeals of local planning and zoning board rulings.
The bills brought together a coalition of employers, housing providers, developers, assessors and advocates for low-income renters, as well as Democratic and Republican lawmakers. "This has been a key public policy issue for New Hampshire's business community for many years," said David Juvet, vice president of the Business and Industry Association. For the last four years, he said, "We kept hearing not only from our members, but businesses all over the state: 'We need more housing for our workers.'"
One key change will be that the law firms up ground rules in assessing affordable housing developments built with federal tax credits. Rental income will become a more important factor in figuring the value of the properties. Market value will become less of a factor.
New Hampshire gets annual allocations of about $22 million in federal housing tax credits that can be used for affordable housing projects, said Ignatius MacLellan of the Northern New England Housing Investment Fund. Those credits are awarded to developers, who then sell them to investors, often banks with operations in the state. MacLellan said developers "need predictability and objectivity to sell those credits." The change in assessing standards, which take effect in July 2009, provide that certainty, he said.
As housing built with the credits is assessed at lower values, other taxpayers may pick up some of the burden, said Judy Silva of the New Hampshire Municipal Association. "When somebody pays less, somebody else pays more, but the bottom line is that there needs to be a fair assessment to begin with," she said. The law makes clear issues in a number of cases that the Board of Tax and Land Appeals now has before it, she said.
Source: UnionLeader.com