Aitken: Legislature Should Repeal Housing Appeals Board

The House Judiciary Committee should recommend passage of HB 288 to repeal the Housing Appeals Board. After past bills to create this board failed, a provision was secreted into the budget by Republican Senators and went into effect in July of 2020.

The Union Leader editorialized that this board, which overrides local decisions, was not the way to solve what is seen as a problem by some liberal organizations such as the BIA. (Nix the 'appeals board': It’s not the way to address housing - UL EDITORIAL Dec 29, 2018)

A House Judiciary Committee hearing date for HB 288 has not yet been set.

Likewise, HB 586, hearing date of February 1 before the House Municipal and County Government Committee, will force zoning boards to be retrained in principles of "new urbanism" as well as give perks to the Governor's developer friends to implement those principles.

Bedford residents do NOT want to be connected to a city or to be made into one and made this clear at both 2019 and 2020 town meetings as well as in their master plan.

New Urbanism is not right for NH. These policies punish the middle class, single-family homeowners and hurt property values. The legislature knows HB 586 will cost the taxpayers because they defeated two similar bills last year due to the lack of tax revenues realized by the state.

For more information, please see the Bedford Residents Association website.

Jane Aitken, Founder
Bedford Residents Assn