The Zoning Ordinance Steering Committee on an evening meeting reported that recent state legislation requires cities to cap parking at one space per dwelling unit and raises the maximum accessory dwelling unit (ADU) size to 950 square feet, prompting staff to revise the draft zoning ordinance before it is posted for public review.

Those state changes “mandate that cities cannot require developers to provide more than 1 parking space per dwelling unit,” said Kristin, planning staff, who led the committee through the draft updates. She said the ordinance’s earlier tiered parking table will be replaced so that “all dwelling units go down to 1 parking space per dwelling unit based on the state.”

Why it matters: The change reduces a local regulatory barrier that planners previously used to limit multifamily conversions and ADUs. Committee members discussed practical consequences — including whether typical Manchester driveways and neighborhood lots can practically support two-vehicle households — and how to treat tandem parking and off-site arrangements.

Key ADU changes and limits
Kristin told the committee the state raised the ADU cap from 900 to 950 square feet; the draft preserves a local limit that an ADU cannot exceed 80 percent of the primary house by area and retains the city’s ability to require minimums when appropriate. “They specifically said at the state level that we cannot mandate stricter criteria for the ADUs than we can for the actual houses themselves,” Kristin said, adding that local form-based standards (pitches, transparency) will now apply uniformly so ADUs “aren’t completely out of scale with the actual house itself.”

The committee noted the state also allows ADU parking obligations to be satisfied off-site, meaning a city cannot force the additional ADU parking space to be located on the same lot if alternative parking is available nearby.

Impact fees and thresholds discussed
Staff said the ordinance must account for fee thresholds tied to square footage. The committee discussed moving the relevant fee cutoff from 900 to 950 square feet to align with the new ADU cap. Committee members described existing impact-fee structure as tiered (lower fee for smaller units, higher fee for larger units) and reviewed how the change could affect the fee applied to ADUs; they agreed the council could revisit fee amounts if desired after staff reviews the consultant study that underlies the current schedule.

Implementation and permitting
Committee members emphasized that, under the draft, qualifying ADUs will be permitted through the building department rather than requiring a separate planning-board review. “Somebody does not have to go to planning. They go to the building department, they get a building permit,” Kristin said, summarizing the intended procedural streamlining.

What remains unresolved
The committee asked staff to check the fee-study implications and confirm whether examples of locally used plan templates (one attendee cited a 902-square-foot preexisting plan) will remain conforming under the 950-square-foot cap. Staff said they will update the draft and post it for public review before the committee’s next meeting.

Provenance:
First related transcript block excerpt (topicintro): “So the next thing I did wanna jump into before you even ask is we also have a lot of changes happen at the state level... So 1 of the biggest ones is going to be for parking. The state is now going to mandate that cities cannot require developers to provide more than 1 parking space per dwelling unit.”

Last related transcript block excerpt (topicfinish): “So the setback and lot coverage area of this also does reference the new RSA... the state says we now have no control over them being able to do that.”