Turning Family Zoned Neighborhoods Into Strip Malls
In 2025, the New Hampshire Republican “crazy-caucus,” with Democrat support, gutted the ability of cities/towns to maintain single-family zoned neighborhoods. For example, a State law (House Bill 457) was passed that allows houses in single-family-zoned neighborhoods to be converted into boarding houses. As a result, Blackstone or some other national corporation, or one of the big local landlords or developers, can buy the house next to you, and/or across the street from you, and/or behind you, etc., and convert it/them into a boarding-house(s).
Another example is a State law (House Bill 557) that allows “Tiny Houses” (the law refers to them antiseptically as “detached accessory dwelling units”) to be built on lots zoned single-family in addition to the primary residence. There is more, but to cut to the chase, the Republican crazy-caucus, with Democrat support, has, as a practical matter, outlawed single-family zoning in New Hampshire.
And now the Republican crazy caucus wants to outlaw family-zoned neighborhoods altogether. House Bill 1023 would force cities/towns to allow “accessory commercial units” in residentially zoned neighborhoods:
In plain English, your neighbors would be able to build and operate stand-alone massage parlors, martial-arts studios, delis, and a whole laundry list of other commercial enterprises in their yards. If HB 1023 ever became law, every neighborhood now zoned residential would, in a short time, become a de facto strip mall.
The sponsors are three thirty-something grifters whose predominant life experience is politics and apparently have absolutely no idea, or do not give a damn, how HB 1023 would destroy the quality of life for families. For example, massage parlors in residential neighborhoods with children – what could possibly go wrong? Only stuff like this:
Needless to say, HB 1023 would destroy property values by making it virtually impossible to sell once, for example, your neighbor plunks a deli in his front yard and prospective purchasers have to park a mile away to view the house, can smell the deli before they see your house, and do not want to deal with the noise, litter and questionable clientele.
We have referred to the sponsors as the Republican crazy caucus, but HB 1023 does NOT reflect Republican values. This bill reflects the values of the New Hampshire Koch-organization that growing GDP takes priority over raising families in safe, clean, pretty neighborhoods, and of libertarians who believe that there should be no regulation of land-use whatsoever (or any regulations at all, for that matter.)
It is far more accurate to call the three stooges sponsoring HB 1023 libertarians than Republicans. And it shows what a sorry state the New Hampshire Republican Party is in that these three stooges are all Chairman of House committees or in House GOP leadership.
We can’t think of legislation that would do more to “Mass Up” New Hampshire than HB 1023. If Goffstown, Salem, and Weare want to turn their residential neighborhoods into low-class strip malls, have at it. But leave the rest of us alone.
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