By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD — The legislative effort to limit local zoning ordinances took another step forward Thursday when the House approved a cap on parking requirements.

Senate Bill 284 would limit parking requirements to one space per unit for residential buildings and not tied to the number of bedrooms as many zoning ordinances require now.

Supporters of the change, which has already passed the Senate, said it would help lower another barrier in the effort to reduce the critical housing shortage plaguing the state for several decades, while opponents said it was yet another shot across the bow to local control.

“One size doesn’t fit all. What may be appropriate in Colebrook may not be appropriate in Portsmouth, or Andover, or Franklin or Londonderry,” said Rep. Louise Andrus, R-Salisbury.  “We should not be passing legislation telling the voters you do not count any more, and that is what we are doing.”

She noted 100 years ago the legislature passed a zoning act allowing communities and New Hampshire voters to decide what they wanted and what they did not want in their communities.

“We allowed it for 100 years,” Andrus said, “and now all of a sudden we are trying to take it away from them.”

If parking is so important, put it on the ballot and let them vote on the issue, Andrus said. “We should not be taking away their rights.” 

Others argued restricting parking requirements to one parking space per unit, does not reflect today’s families as most have two or three vehicles, and the restriction would leave no space for a visitor, and would cause congestion in neighborhoods as people try to find nearby parking.

While the restriction may be fine for a city with mass transit, it is not in rural areas where a vehicle is a necessity, they argued.

But proponents argued many communities require two or three parking spaces per unit, which makes no sense in higher density areas.

Kelley Potenza, R-Rochester, noted a nearly identical bill passed the House earlier this session before “the uptick in the heated housing rhetoric began.”

She noted some communities require multiple parking spaces for a studio or one-bedroom apartment. She called those ordinances exclusionary and aimed at hurting the working class.

“We as elected officials dictate what the free market is allowed to do,” Potenza said. “A statewide standard would override these local regulations requiring excessive parking.”

They are one of the barriers to more housing and more affordable housing, she said, adding the requirements are out of touch with the way people live today where in many areas of the state you do not need a car.

“This hurts property owners and tenants,” Potenza said, noting more parking means less building space and higher construction costs, and many tenants pay for asphalt they don’t use.

The bill passed on a 197-144 vote and goes back to the Senate because the House amended it.

Net Metering

The House killed a bill that would have expanded low- and moderate-income community solar projects from 6 to 18 megawatts, and would have added nonprofit educational institutions and public housing authorities to the list of eligible municipal net metering hosts.

Rep. Thomas Cormen, D-Lebanon, said while the bill would lower costs for low-to moderate-income homeowners and institutions like the University of New Hampshire, which could use some help after the House-passed state aid cuts, the objection to the bill is it would shift costs from those who have solar generated electricity to those who do not.

He said a recent study done for the Public Utilities Commission on net metering found that if there is a cost shift it is no more than 1 percent.

“If anything the cost shifting is going the other way,” Cormen said, with transmission costs increasing which you can avoid with local distribution.

And he noted with utilities shifting into the spot market for power purchases, the reduction in demand due to solar generation, lowers the “clearing price” utilities have to pay on the spot market.

But opponents to Senate Bill 228 cited a study just released in Maine they said lays the blame for a 55 percent increase in the cost of electricity over the last 10 years to net metering which was increased from one to five megawatts.

Net metering allows homeowners with solar panels to sell the excess energy produced by the panels to their electric utility.

Rep. Michael Vose, R-Epping, said in New Hampshire the cost of net metering increased by $7 million over two years.

While the bill is not a big expansion of net metering, taken together it expands net metering and drives up costs for ratepayers, he said.

Solar generation already has a plethora of subsidies and tax credits, Vose said.

“We have to stop subsidizing these technologies and let them compete in the marketplace for ratepayer dollars,” he said.

But Rep. Dale Swanson, D-Nashua, said the bill would help the state move off of its dependence on fossil fuels.

The cost of solar in the future will pale in price to what ratepayers will pay for fossil fuel in a volatile market with unreliable supplies, he said.

The bill was killed on a 190-151 vote.

Child Endangerment

The House killed Senate Bill 23 which would have expanded the criminal penalties for endangering the welfare of a child.

The bill was requested by law enforcement who said current laws do not hold those responsible for the welfare of children accountable when egregious harm or even death occurs, said Rep. Alicia Gregg, D-Nashua.

But several argued the bill would put parents in jail if their child was injured in a sporting event or hiking.

Rep. David Love, R-Derry, said the bill would “criminalize parenting, undermine parental rights and erode constitutional rights.”

The bill was killed on a 190-152 vote, although the House Children and Family Law Committee had recommended it pass on a unanimous vote.

Gambling on Vaccines 

The House voted 176-165 to add a provision that would shift the responsibility of determining what vaccines children need to attend school to the legislature to a bill allowing advanced deposit wagering on pari-mutuel betting on horse racing.

Earlier in the day the Senate killed House Bill 357 which includes the same provision.

The bill was approved and now goes back to the Senate.

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.