The New Hampshire House and Senate sent three bills to Gov. Kelly Ayotte, intended to enable more housing construction, overcoming opposition from the New Hampshire Municipal Association and others.

In a series of votes on the last standard session day of the year, Thursday, the House and Senate approved final versions of House Bill 1010, House Bill 1588, and Senate Bill 564, which address housing developments in commercial zones, parking requirements, and development on dead-end roads.

The bills now head to Ayotte’s desk and face strong prospects: Ayotte signed and celebrated a slate of bills in 2025 meant to spur housing, in large part by overriding perceived restrictive municipal zoning.

But they also overcame opposition from some who said they eroded needed guardrails for cities and towns, and could lead to safety issues and overcrowding in commercial areas.

“New Hampshire needs more affordable housing, but we also need smart growth, responsible planning, and local decision-making,” said Rep. David Preece, D-Manchester, speaking against the bills. “Housing and local control are not mutually exclusive.”

HB 1010 and HB 1588 are companion bills intended to update last year’s transformational housing statute for commercial zones.

That law, House Bill 631, is not set to take effect until July 1, about a year after it was signed. It requires municipalities to allow multi-family residential developments on commercially zoned land, as long as there are adequate roads, water, and sewage, and no issues with the site “incompatible with residential use,” such as air, noise, odor, or transportation impacts.

Both HB 1010 and HB 1588, if signed by Ayotte, would update HB 631 just one minute after it takes effect next month.

HB 1588 would tighten the law. It would clarify that the developers could build housing that passed the requirements “by right” in commercial zones — a stronger legal status. It would also limit the types of restrictions municipalities could place on that development to frontage, setbacks, and height requirements, excluding other factors such as density.

And if a developer sued after being improperly denied a permit by a municipality, the developer could seek attorneys’ fees from the city or town, the bill states.

“It addresses the ambiguity in the existing law that will result in taxpayer‑funded lawsuits, and also grants municipalities greater local control by clarifying that municipalities can do site review,” said Rep. Joe Alexander, R-Goffstown, who is the chairman of the House Housing Committee, in a speech on the House floor.

HB 1010, in contrast, would give municipalities tools to potentially limit certain developments. The bill would allow municipalities to carry out studies to determine whether the water, sewage, and traffic infrastructure is adequate before approving. If the road design did not support the expected traffic volume, for instance, the proposal could be denied.

Traffic studies could include increases in vehicle traffic on the roads, the availability of sidewalks, and other pedestrian safety measures. The bill would allow cities and towns to require developers to obtain approvals from the owners of public water and sewer systems before proceeding.

Together, the two bills are meant to clarify the intent and scope of last year’s commercial zoning bill, Alexander said.

“The only thing that we’re going to run into is that municipalities may be open to more lawsuits if we fail to clarify what we mean by these laws,” he said.

HB 1588 also includes an unrelated provision that would allow cities and towns to create “special assessment districts,” in which municipalities can issue bonds to pay for infrastructure upgrades and then levy fees on the developments that would benefit from the upgrades to pay off the bonds.

But opponents, such as the Municipal Association, warned HB 1588 would tie the hands of municipalities with reasonable concerns. In a handout given to lawmakers ahead of the vote, the association called the bill “one of the most anti-local control bills of the session.”

Preece agreed. “This bill goes further by overriding local zoning protections and by exposing municipalities to costly litigation, forcing taxpayers to pay attorneys when disputes arise,” he said. “This is not a housing policy; it is a mandate that shifts the risk and the cost onto local communities.”

SB 564 would address restrictions on dead-end roads. It would prevent cities and towns from imposing a maximum road length for new housing development, as long as that new development adheres to the state fire code.

It stops municipalities from capping the number of homes on a dead-end road, unless the cap is necessary to comply with the fire code or guidelines from the National Fire Protection Association.

And it requires cities and towns to allow utilities such as septic systems and electric distribution infrastructure to be installed in buffer areas, open spaces, as long as they aren’t wetlands or protected shorelands.

Again, opponents cited concerns of overdevelopment if the bill becomes law.

“Let’s take a look at what could be built on 100 housing lots,” said Rep. David Fracht, D-Enfield. “One hundred single-family homes? Certainly. One hundred duplexes or triplexes? Why not? How about 100 apartment buildings with an unlimited number of dwelling units? This bill places no cap on the number of dwelling units that can be built on these long dead-end roads.”

Alexander argued the bill would bring needed development while respecting safety concerns.

“This bill now clarifies and provides statutory requirements for local jurisdictions to follow relative to the state fire code,” he said.

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The New Hampshire Supreme Court on Thursday reversed a murder conviction for a man accused of killing his 5-year-old daughter and moving her corpse around for months before disposing of it.

Though her body has never been found, police believe Harmony Montgomery was killed in 2019, nearly two years before she was reported missing. Her father, Adam Montgomery, was sentenced to a minimum of 56 years in prison in 2024 after being convicted of second-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, falsifying evidence, witness tampering and assault.

The Supreme Court, however, reversed the most serious charge, agreeing with Montgomery that the lesser assault charge should have been prosecuted separately. It sent the second-degree murder charge back to the lower court while letting the other convictions stand.

In their unanimous ruling, justices said combining the cases jeopardized Montgomery’s right to a fair trial because jurors may have used the stronger evidence about the assault to conclude, based on weaker evidence, that he killed her months later.

“There was a significant risk that the jury would draw the impermissible inference that because the defendant assaulted the victim before by striking her in the head, he must be the one who fatally assaulted her in December by again striking her in the head,” the justices said.

The second-degree murder conviction accounts for 45 years of Montgomery’s 56-years-to-life sentence, which was imposed on top of an earlier 32 ½-year sentence he already was serving on unrelated gun charges.

The attorney general’s office said Thursday it will pursue a retrial on the second-degree murder charge.

“We remain confident in the facts of this case, the evidence presented, and the exceptional work of our prosecutors, investigators, and law enforcement partners,” said spokesperson Michael Garrity. “We will continue our efforts to seek justice for Harmony Montgomery and all those who knew and loved her.”

Montgomery’s attorneys did not respond to emails seeking comment.

Last year, the state agreed to pay $2.25 million to Harmony Montgomery’s mother to settle a lawsuit accusing social workers of ignoring signs that the girl was being abused by her father after he was awarded custody in early 2019. Crystal Sorey went to police in 2021, and in 2022 authorities announced that they believed Harmony was dead.

Adam Montgomery did not attend his trial in February 2022, and his lawyers called no defense witnesses. His attorneys acknowledged he was guilty of falsifying evidence and abusing a corpse, but they said he did not kill Harmony and instead suggested the girl actually died while alone with her stepmother, Kayla Montgomery.

Kayla Montgomery, who served an 18-month prison sentence for lying to a grand jury about where she was when Harmony was last seen, was the star witness for the prosecution. She testified that her husband killed Harmony on Dec. 7, 2019, while the family lived in their car. Montgomery was driving to a fast-food restaurant when he turned around and repeatedly punched Harmony in the face and head because he was angry that she was having bathroom accidents in the car, she said. He then hid the body in the trunk of a car, in a ceiling vent of a homeless shelter and in the walk-in freezer at his workplace before disposing of it in March 2020, she said.

Kayla Montgomery said she tried to stop her husband from hitting the girl but was scared of him and that he beat her as well as he grew paranoid that she would go to police.