So how do Granite Staters really feel about the housing shortage? According to a recent Saint Anselm College poll, two-thirds of New Hampshire voters agree that their community needs more affordable housing.
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Considering NH is short of 20,000 units needed to balance the market, this finding should not come as a shock.
However, what is shocking is how much the other third limits development across the state. That’s right, often it’s the minority of opponents who sway a town’s decisions over development, no matter how much broader support exists. Why? Because decisions are made by those who show up, and typically, those who show up for project approvals are homeowners who refuse changes to their neighborhood’s status quo. In fact, 85% of development meeting attendees are opponents, and this leaves a small opportunity for support to shine through, despite its existence. The problem with this is how much it skews the picture of community perception toward development. Despite its distortion, this picture influences the outcome of housing projects all the same.
New research from Katherine Einstein, a Boston University political science professor, reinforces these findings. According to Einstein, a distorted picture of public consensus is a staple of the housing approvals process in New England. And recognizing the sway that homeowners have over the development process, Einstein set out to identify the demographics of those who typically attend project meetings, specifically where affordable or multifamily housing is proposed. What she found was that those “who show up are privileged, whiter, older, homeowners, who also overwhelmingly opposed development, with only 15% who showed support.” And this crowd has no problem influencing decisions that impact the wider community.
So what’s the end result of all of this? Land use boards often yield to the wishes of the outspoken, meaning development proposals (outside the scope of single-family homes) are squashed and the inventory remains stagnant. Without a diverse housing stock, communities have fewer resources to support residents of diverse economic backgrounds and fewer resources to support adults as they age.
Although development-dissenters may think they’re “preserving” their neighborhoods with single-family-only housing, we are seeing the opposite effect take place. Ultimately, communities suffer without adequate resources to support all classes of people. Without enough multifamily homes, condos, or workforce housing, communities lose their young people, businesses lose their workers, and the remaining homeowners sacrifice what they intended to protect in the first place: community vitality and property values, compromised by lost workers and closing businesses. It’s time to wake up and recognize that our resistance toward diverse forms of housing is not informed by fact, but by fear. And the consequences of this fear spare no one—homeowner or not.
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