Housing Code Ordinance

The Housing Code Ordinance was established to ensure that all residential rental properties in the City of Manchester meet or exceed minimum standards. Details on this ordinance can be obtained by clicking on the link above.

One item of particular importance is the need for hard-wired smoke detectors. As of January, 2000 all smoke detectors in residential rental property are required to be powered by the house current, wired in accordance with the electrical code.

For more information regarding Landlord/Tenant issues, and housing complaints, click here.

Zoning Ordinance

The Zoning Ordinance is designed and adopted for the following purposes:

1. To protect and promote the public safety, convenience, comfort, aesthetics, prosperity, health, and general welfare of the inhabitants of the City of Manchester, New Hampshire
2. To secure safety from fires, panic, explosion, noxious fumes, and other such hazards and dangers, and to control nuisance-producing uses of land
3. To promote adequate light, air, privacy, and convenience of access to property
4. To avoid undue concentration of population, to prevent the overcrowding of land, and to lessen congestion in the streets
5. To facilitate the adequate provision of transportation, solid waste facilities, water, sewerage, schools, parks, child day care, and other public requirements
6. To assure the proper use of natural resources, to prevent pollution of air and water, to protect property from flooding and accelerated erosion, to protect historic and archeological resources, to protect wetlands, and to conserve natural beauty and open space
7. To conserve property values by preventing the harmful encroachment of incompatible uses, and by providing for the elimination of those uses which adversely affect the neighborhood character, development, and value of property, and to insure that any proposed development is compatible in use, scale and building design within the neighborhood in which the development is proposed
8. To encourage the most appropriate use of land, and to allow for planned, orderly, and beneficial growth as envisioned by the Master Plan