Authored by Rebecca Owens, Senior Planner, Planning and Development, City of Lebanon
Key Takeaways
- The city of Lebanon, N.H. is leveraging the Housing Supply Accelerator Challenge (2025–26) to align housing growth, stability and resilience with regional and workforce needs and to ensure national innovations, shared by Accelerator experts, are taken into consideration.
- The City’s Housing Needs Assessment (March 2025) and Housing Market Analysis (August 2025) outline the need for roughly 850 new units by 2030 and 1,249 by 2040.
- Lebanon’s housing strategy pairs zoning reform, ADU updates and “Pattern Zones” with public-private partnerships to deliver missing-middle and workforce housing.
- The city connects housing and childcare access to strengthen household and workforce stability.
With housing being a key issue for cities, towns and villages, it’s timely to share how the City of Lebanon, N.H., is weaving together efforts across the housing continuum to meet regional needs, support its workforce and build long-term resilience.
Why the Moment Demands a Full-Continuum Approach
Lebanon is a steadily growing small city at the “Crossroads of New England,” part of one of the fastest-growing micropolitan regions in the U.S. We’re home or neighbor to substantial bio-tech, academic, manufacturing and similar facilities, and our population of over 14,282 residents burgeons to over 30,000 daytime commuters (PDF) and occupants. Would those commuters live here if they could? For example, our largest private employer, Dartmouth Health, recruits and retains a large workforce with several hundred vacancies at any given time — and housing supply is a critical piece of that story.
As our recent Housing Needs Assessment (March 2025) documents, our population is growing, with a 9 percent increase over the past decade. While we are seeing more young professionals and aging‐in-place households, Lebanon has a lower than national average for young people overall. Data like this survey from Stay Work Play NH highlight how housing impacts their perspectives about New Hampshire. Without the right housing types, especially more affordable workplace housing and “missing middle” units like accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and townhomes, we risk bottlenecking our economic vitality, exacerbating instability for lower-income residents, and limiting options — whether for local graduates who want to return to their hometown after college, or for those experiencing homelessness and housing disruption.
Aligning with the Region
Most municipalities in the Upper Valley of VT/NH, a region of 30+ communities, are unable to keep pace with housing demand, leaving Lebanon as the focal point for this market. Our Housing Market Analysis (August 2025) shows that by 2030, Lebanon should be ready to accommodate approximately 848 new units, and by 2040 about 1,249 units, including about 820 owner units and 429 rental units. The data corresponds with regional “Keys to the Valley” findings.
That means our strategy must not only deliver supply, but the right supply — owner-units in the 60–120 percent area medium income (AMI) range, well‐designed rental housing to capture the young professionals and workforce households who want to live here and affordability for those most at risk of instability or homelessness.
Our three-pronged focus: Supply. Stability. Support.
1. Housing Supply
We are participating in the Housing Supply Accelerator Challenge (2025–26) in partnership with NLC, which gives our team a framework and peer network as we advance the supply side. On the ground, we are developing our City’s Housing Plan, funded by a NH Bureau of Economic Affairs (BEA) Housing Opportunity Planning grant, and directed by our volunteer-based Lebanon Housing Task Force. This builds upon prior Planning & Development Department work to understand how to enable additional housing in Lebanon.
Some of the specific strategies we are using:
- Pattern Zones: We are creating infill-appropriate pre-approved housing plan templates that meet building code and are designed for missing middle housing (e.g., duplex, triplex, small multifamily), and which potentially have local modular construction partners and creative lenders to bring down construction cost barriers.
- Rezoning initiatives: Our Northern Lebanon Community Plan includes zoning reform and land use changes to enable more housing types and infill in areas close to workplaces, including Dartmouth Health, and existing public infrastructure.
- ADU Reform: We’re updating our accessory dwelling unit regulatory framework to make it easier to create rental and ownership units for household types such as childcare workers, young professionals and aging family members who want to downsize.
- Strategic Public Assets and Partnerships: We’re working hard to examine municipal assets and ‘lazy dirt.’ Examples: brownfield rehabilitation of 20 Spencer Street for affordable housing; the Barrows Street Cottages (City land + NH BEA infrastructure/design grants); and other City-owned parcels like the Downtown Lebanon Parking Lots Redevelopment and West Lebanon Main Street Properties Redevelopment) via RFP. We’re also working with our Downtown and Airport Tax Increment Financing districts and exploring long-term leasing of City land at reduced rates to leverage additional private development.
- Cottage Housing: As mentioned above, we’re advancing proof of concept for compact workforce housing that enables ownership and inspires similar efficient subdivisions.
- Workforce Partner Alignment: We support Dartmouth Health’s employer-assisted housing efforts (e.g., master leasing of rental apartments and the “Crossmod” project on a vacant hospital property) through planning technical assistance and potential joint grant applications.
- Economic Tools Allowed by NH Statute: Lebanon has enabled RSA 79-E tax relief for developments like the Lebanon Woolen Mill multifamily project.
All of this is intended to tie housing production to jobs, transit, services and community vitality.
2. Housing Stability & Affordability
We know that supply alone won’t solve homelessness, instability or affordability, so Lebanon’s Human Services and partner programs offer key resources:
- We are collaborating with The Upper Valley Haven on the winter shelter system, including a facility on City land, and with others on residential treatment programs. While we build housing for the long term, we must maintain pathways for those experiencing homelessness or housing disruption. See this 2024 video about the City’s work.
- Through the Housing Plan process and Task Force, public engagement includes renters, homeowners and people at risk of losing or who have lost their housing. We examine how housing needs related to life stages, incomes, stability and accessibility to transit and services.
- Childcare is critical to affordability to allow workforce participation. For this reason, we’re integrating childcare capacity into our housing strategy. We acknowledge that childcare workers themselves need affordable housing near their work, and that young families need housing plus childcare options. Increasing workforce housing reduces commutes and enables proximity to jobs and services so that Lebanon can enhance stability for working households and support economic participation. Our partner, Grafton County Regional Development Corporation, is stepping up to complement the capacity of our small city — assisting with state coordination, facility development, in-home provider resources and employer engagement.
3. Long-Term Resilience
Housing today must also be resilient for tomorrow. Lebanon’s climate adaptation lens is part of our strategy, and we strive to understand the factors essential to a Resilient Lebanon. When we encourage housing near transit, jobs and services, we reduce greenhouse gas emissions from long commutes and new public infrastructure. When we enable infill and missing middle units, we prevent sprawl and protect open space. When we engage modular and efficient construction, we reduce waste and carbon.
Our Housing Plan will include sustainability and resilient design strategies. Furthermore, because Lebanon sits in the Upper Valley region, we are mindful of aging infrastructure, climate impacts (flooding, extreme weather) and land-use decisions that enable both growth and hazard mitigation.
Lessons & Takeaways for Other Communities
- Align housing with workforce and economy. Our housing shortage isn’t abstract — it’s tied to employer recruitment/retention, to service industry (including childcare) workforce gaps and to young professionals and families seeking both ownership and rental options. Other communities should regularly discuss and support employer-assisted housing opportunities.
- Identify public tools to catalyze private action. Using City-owned land, TIF districts, long-term leases, pilot projects, tax relief and regulatory reforms like pattern zoning to increase buildable options and reduce risk and cost for builders while ensuring public benefit in terms of diversity of unit type, tenure, affordability and proximity to services.
- Balance supply, stability and resilience. It’s not enough to build housing; we must ensure the housing is accessible, affordable, stable and climate resilient. Homelessness interventions must be part of the continuum. Young and older people alike want to stay here, but the quality and diversity of housing options will define that outcome.
- Engage the community early and often. Our regular public engagement efforts (surveys and focus groups) help reflect the real needs of renters, owners, young professionals, families and older residents, and increases their awareness of options as well.
- Think regionally. Lebanon is part of a larger micropolitan region. While we cannot serve all projected housing needs, we need to anchor planning in regional data, needs assessments, and shared infrastructure/investment opportunities.
Looking Forward
In the coming year, we will finalize our Housing Plan and update the Housing Chapter of our Master Plan. We will continue to leverage the Housing Supply Accelerator Challenge and its peer learning. We will also pursue specific projects like the Barrows Street Cottages, West Lebanon revitalization, City land leasing opportunities and modular housing partnerships.
Finally, we will monitor key indicators like unit production, tenure mix, affordability and vacancy rates, and adjust priorities as needed, folding and formalizing these metrics into Lebanon’s Strategic Plan. We look forward to learning from the NLC network of cities and sharing updates as we continue this work.
