Sunapee Planning Board weighs zoning changes amid housing pressure

Sunapee’s planning board moved zoning and housing policy to the center of the town’s land-use debate, weighing amendments that could change what property owners may do on their lots and what abutters can block. The June 18 meeting at 6:30 p.m. in the Sunapee Town Meeting Room was posted as a review of upcoming zoning amendments and a housing discussion, a signal that the town’s rules may soon be tested against the pressure to add more places to live.

The board’s lineup at the time included Chair Peter White, Vice Chair Joseph Butler, members Randy Clark, Greg Swick, Richard Osborne and Lynn Arnold, along with alternate members Gunnar Blix, Debbie Samalis and Doug Windsor. Selectboard representative Aaron Whipple also sat in on the policy discussion, with town planner Michael Marquise and land use administrator Allyson Traeger helping steer the process. That makes the board the key gatekeeper for any language that could expand or narrow what owners can do, from housing conversions to other permitted uses.

At stake is more than a routine text change. Sunapee’s 2025 Master Plan, formally adopted on Sept. 18, 2025, is supposed to guide decisions on housing, transportation, recreation, natural resources and community priorities for the next decade and beyond. In practice, that means the planning board’s zoning choices will help decide whether the town makes room for new homes, protects existing neighborhoods from change, or leaves builders to navigate a tighter regulatory path.

Housing pressure is the backdrop for every one of those choices. The Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission said its 2022-2023 Regional Housing Needs Assessment was built to give towns current housing data and help them meet workforce housing requirements. A policy brief from Dartmouth’s Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy, published April 19, 2024, described an ever-present housing shortage in the Upper Valley Lake Sunapee region that squeezes low and moderate-income families, limits the workforce and leaves service shortages in place.

Sunapee also has a recent legal warning sign. On May 14, 2024, the New Hampshire Supreme Court issued its Hoekstra decision, which centered on whether a travel trailer in Sunapee could be used as a short-term rental. The New Hampshire Municipal Association has noted that Sunapee’s ordinance is permissive zoning, meaning uses not expressly permitted are generally prohibited. That makes the board’s next zoning language especially consequential: tighter wording would strengthen control for neighbors and municipal regulators, while broader language would give owners and housing providers more room to use their property.