A New Hampshire bill that addresses one of the biggest barriers to developing housing went through a Senate Commerce Committee public hearing on March 31, 2026.
HB 1588, which would allow cities and towns to create special assessment districts to help build public infrastructure to support housing, was referred to the New Hampshire Senate's Housing Committee after the hearing.
According to Ink Link, The special assessment districts would "finance public infrastructure improvements necessary for new development, including sidewalks, roads, utility extensions and water mains," for development that's in the approval process.
A two-thirds vote of the governing body would be required to establish the district.
"One of the biggest barriers to housing and development is not always the private project itself, it's the cost to the public infrastructure needed to support it," State Rep. Joe Alexander told the committee.
He said that creation of the districts would allow municipalities to expand infrastructure, with the benefiting developers bearing the cost.
"It's a practical local option," he said. "A fair, targeted way to finance improvements."
Alexander introduced the bill for sponsor State Rep. Joe Sweeney, who couldn't attend the hearing. The House passed the bill by voice vote on March 11, according to Ink Link.
Nick Taylor of Housing Action NH told the committee that his organization supports the bill.
"Infrastructure challenges are a real and big barrier to building more housing," Taylor said. "[Housing Action] is all for putting more tools in the toolbox for municipalities."
Taylor said that the New Hampshire Zoning Atlas team found that only 5.6 percent of the state's buildable land has adequate water and sewer infrastructure to support housing development, while only 12 percent has one or the other.
HB 1588 requires that assessments be levied only "against properties that receive a direct and ascertainable benefit from the improvements."
The municipality will determine the apportionment method, which may include frontage, lot size, assessed value, number of units or other metrics.
Municipalities would be able to issue bonds for up to 20 years to finance improvements within the district. Those would be repaid from assessments levied under the new law, according to Ink Link.
"This is not a state mandate, not a tax increase, not a blank check," Alexander said. "It's a special assessment on a specific project that's going to go forward."
He also said it's different from a tax increment funding (TIF) district.
"A TIF captures future growth," Alexander said. "[HB 1588] makes growth possible in the first place."
Taylor said his only concern is that municipalities don't get the new special assessment district law confused with a similar one initiated by property owners.
HB 1588 is municipality-driven, to be used to support developers who are creating housing.
Taylor said legislators should "make sure the two chapters work together, so municipalities aren't confused" about which one to use.
The bill calls for the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs to expand its housing infrastructure municipal grant program to allow for water, sewer and road upgrades for new housing units. It appropriates $1 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2027, to establish the fund. The grant money helps municipalities pay administrative costs arising from establishing the districts.
The bill would take up some of the slack left by the unfunded Housing Champions program which, in the prior fiscal year, awarded $5 million in grants to cities and towns that had done the work to incentivize housing development.
$3.5 million of that money was awarded to eight municipalities that prioritized infrastructure upgrades and met certain metrics that made 2,280 more housing units possible, according to the program's annual report.
