Where a Manchester association is affected

Three categories, in rough order of how often they come up.

Accessory dwelling units. Manchester's code is reported to cap ADUs at 900 square feet and two bedrooms, no taller than the principal dwelling, with owner-occupancy of one of the two units recorded as a deed restriction. We take those specifics from zoning aggregators rather than the ordinance text and flag them as unverified — a board relying on a number should pull the code itself. The adoption date, the vote and the effective date are solid.

Short-term rentals. Reported as a distinct accessory use — transient occupancy under 30 consecutive days, no more than 90 days a year — not permitted in residential zones and allowed only by special exception in certain commercial zones. Same sourcing caveat.

Redevelopment and expansion. A consolidated code changes the procedural map for any association doing site work that needs site plan review: additional parking, a new accessory building, a reconfigured drive. The substance may not have changed much; the path through the document has.

The state law sitting underneath it

Manchester's ADU provisions are not written on a blank sheet. HB 577 (2025) amended RSA 674:71 to 73 and requires municipalities to permit one accessory dwelling unit — attached or detached — as of right wherever single-family homes are allowed, with a floor on permitted living space.

That mandate binds the city, not the association. A Manchester condominium or homeowners association whose covenants bar second dwelling units is not affected by it, and an owner who reads a state ADU right as overriding their declaration has confused two bodies of law. The one 2026 bill that would have addressed the overlap directly — barring separate condominium conveyance of an ADU from its principal unit — did not become law.

Why the STR provision matters more than the ADU one here

Manchester is not a resort market, so the short-term rental question in the city is mostly about investor-owned condominium units in converted mill buildings and multifamily conversions. Where the city now bars transient occupancy in residential zones, an association that has been fighting a nightly-rental owner under its own covenants acquires a second enforcement route — complaint to the city — that costs the association nothing.

The reverse case is worth naming too: an association whose declaration is silent on rentals and whose owners have been renting short-term legally may find the city, not the board, ending the practice.

What to watch next

Enforcement posture through the first full season under the code. A new ordinance effective March 1 has by now produced its first round of applications and its first denials, and how the zoning board treats short-term rental special exceptions is the part that will settle quickly and quietly.

Beyond Manchester, several New Hampshire towns worked short-term rental ordinances through 2026 — Franklin circulated a draft following Meredith's permit model, New Durham held a final public hearing in January 2026, and Durham advanced council-initiated zoning amendments. A permit scheme in any of them sits alongside a declaration's rental restrictions, never instead of it.