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Municipal Land Use Regulation Annual Survey

The NH Office of Strategic Initiatives annually surveys municipalities regarding their land use regulations pursuant to RSA 675:9 as well as for other general municipal information.

RSA 675:9 establishes the New Hampshire Office of Strategic Initiatives (OSI) as the state repository for all local land use regulations including master plans, zoning ordinances, historic district ordinances, capital improvement plans, building codes, subdivision regulations, historic district regulations, and site plan review regulations. RSA 675:9 also authorizes OSI to conduct an annual survey of all municipalities in order to collect information pertaining to new and/or amended land use ordinances.

The survey includes those municipalities that lack a comprehensive, traditional zoning ordinances, as several have other types of land use regulations including residential subdivision regulations, non-residential site plan review regulations, a wireless telecommunications ordinance, sign regulations, and/or a drinking water protection ordinance. Several of the municipalities that lack comprehensive, traditional zoning ordinances are also participating communities in the National Flood Insurance Program and have separate floodplain development ordinances, which are tracked by our office’s State Floodplain Management Program separate from this survey.

2019 - 2020 Survey Results - updated November 2020

The 2019 survey pdf file was completed by all, but of five of the state's 234 municipalities as well as nine village districts with zoning authority and Coos County, which has zoning authority over 23 unincorporated places in the North Country. In addition, 130 communities submitted zoning amendment updates after their 2020 Annual Town Meetings.

The survey results including 2020 zoning amendment updates are available in various forms noted below. OSI welcomes the use of the survey data for further analysis, but we ask that all data be attributed to OSI's 2019 Municipal Land Use Regulation Survey and would appreciate notification if your analysis produces any noteworthy results.

Municipal Planning Organizational Structure | Land Use Regulations | Master Plan Topics | Housing Information | Building Code Information | Economic Development | Planning & Development Techniques | Water & Shoreland Regulations | Energy Information

Municipal Planning Organizational Structure

Land Use Regulations/Documents

Master Plan Topics

Housing Information

Building Code Information

Economic Development

Planning & Development Techniques

Water & Shoreland Regulations

Energy Information

Past Presentations

  • Presentation slides for Overview of the 2019 – 2020 Municipal Land Use Regulation Survey Results webinar on December 9, 2020 pdf file

If you have any questions about the survey results or specific data requests please contact Noah Hodgetts at Noah.D.Hodgetts@livefree.nh.gov or (603) 271-2157.

DISCLAIMER: The 2019 - 2020 results are reflective of data submitted via survey response by local officials. While information submitted is believed to be a reliable reflection of current local land use regulations, this data should be relied upon for reference purposes only and no warranty is given for its accuracy.

Portable Document Format Symbol Portable Document Format (.pdf). Visit nh.gov for a list of free .pdf readers for a variety of operating systems.

Microsoft Excel Symbol Microsoft Excel format. You can download a free reader from Microsoft.

Microsoft Excel Symbol Comma Separated Values (.csv) format. Visit nh.gov for a list of free .csv reader/import programs for different operating systems.

NH Office of Strategic Initiatives