| Max size | 1,000 sq ftnever capped below 750 by the % rule |
|---|---|
| Min size | 200 sq ft |
| Bedrooms | Up to 2 |
| Type | Attached or detachedone or the other, not both |
| Parking | None requiredno ADU parking rule in the ordinance |
| Owner-occupancy | Requiredin either the ADU or the primary home |
| Short-term rental | Prohibitedno Airbnb/VRBO; long-term rental only |
| Utility connection | Tie into the existing electrical connection or choose a separate metersame statewide |
The July 2025 state law (RSA 674:71–73) overrides local ordinance language that conflicts with it — even language a town still has posted. Here's what that means in Lee:
The townhouse half of this sentence is fine — state law specifically lets a town exclude townhouses. The manufactured-housing half is the problem. If your manufactured home sits on land you own and is a permitted single-family dwelling in Zone A, state law appears to entitle you to an ADU anyway, and Lee's blanket exclusion is broader than what the statute authorizes. (Caveat that cuts the other way: state law DOES let a town prohibit ADUs on rented or leased land, so a manufactured home in a leased-lot park would still be excludable.) This one genuinely needs a NH land-use attorney before anyone acts on it.
Lee's Zone A already has a 50-foot front setback, and a homeowner building an ordinary addition or garage only has to clear that 50 feet. This clause holds an ADU to a stricter line — it can't sit any farther forward than your house does, even if it would clear the 50-foot setback. That's an extra control applied to ADUs and nothing else, which is the exact category of requirement RSA 674:72, I says a town cannot add. Worth noting this is a leftover from the town's earlier design-standards draft; Lee deleted the rest of that section but this one sentence survived into the setback clause.
If you attach your ADU to the house, Lee makes you (a) join it by a shared wall and (b) cut an interior door between the two units — though the door may stay locked. Neither requirement exists in state law. The current ADU statute says nothing at all about interior doors, and it expressly forbids the town from limiting your choice of how the ADU is entered and exited. Both are construction controls an ordinary single-family homeowner would never face, which is the category RSA 674:72, I forecloses. The shared-wall rule is arguably the bigger problem of the two: it appears to rule out an attached ADU joined by a breezeway or connector, narrowing what 'attached' can mean. Practically, the locked-door carve-out means most homeowners won't care. But if this requirement is what blocks your design, it is worth pushing back on with a NH land-use attorney — the town is on thin statutory ice here.
Lee sets a 200 sq ft floor on how small your ADU can be. State law doesn't say anything about minimum sizes one way or the other, and 200 sq ft is low enough that it rarely bites in practice (building code habitability minimums land in roughly the same territory). But it IS an ADU-only space limitation, which is the category RSA 674:72, I restricts. Realistically this is a low-stakes gray area, not a fight worth having — flagged for completeness, not alarm.
Requiring owner-occupancy is legal, and requiring proof of it is legal. The narrow question is whether restricting proof to exactly two documents — a Lee voter registration or a Lee vehicle registration — is a 'reasonable regulation' for an owner who is a lawful resident but neither registered to vote nor a car owner. Probably fine in the ordinary case; flagged as an edge for the reviewer, not as a headline problem.
This one the town almost certainly wins, and it's the single biggest practical limit in Lee's ordinance. You may build the ADU and rent it long-term, but you may not run it as an Airbnb/VRBO. State law gives you no cover here. Listed in conflicts[] not because Lee is overreaching, but because it's the rule most likely to blow up an ADU pro-forma built on nightly-rental income.
Lee is one of the better ADU towns in New Hampshire right now, and the reason is timing: the ordinance you're subject to was ratified at the March 10, 2026 town election — roughly eight months AFTER the state's new ADU law (RSA 674:71-73, as amended by HB 577) took effect on July 1, 2025 — and Lee actually used that window to rewrite its rules instead of ignoring them.
WHAT YOU GET. One ADU per lot of record, and you choose whether it's attached or detached. It's a by-right permitted use in the Residential Zone (Zone A) — Lee's ordinance says in plain words that 'an ADU requires only a building permit application and a certificate of occupancy.' No special exception. No conditional use permit. No Zoning Board hearing. No site plan review. Size: 200 to 1,000 square feet of gross floor area — note that 1,000 is MORE generous than the state's 950 sq ft default, which towns are allowed to exceed if they want to, and Lee did. There's a secondary rule that the ADU can't be bigger than your main house, but Lee wrote the state's protection right into the sentence: that percentage-style cap can never squeeze you below 750 sq ft. Up to two bedrooms. You may convert a legally nonconforming detached garage or barn — or carve an ADU out of a legally nonconforming house — even if the structure violates today's setbacks. And you can build the ADU at the same time as a brand-new house; you don't have to build the house first and retrofit later.
THE PARKING SURPRISE. There is no ADU parking requirement in Lee. None. The town's own public-hearing draft would have required one off-street space per ADU bedroom and banned a second driveway — and that entire clause was dropped before adoption, along with a whole page of design/aesthetic standards (matching siding and paint color, 'clearly subordinate' appearance, no street-facing fire escapes). Those provisions would have collided head-on with state law, and Lee appears to have caught that itself. Credit where it's due.
WHAT WILL ACTUALLY STOP YOU. Two things, and they matter more than any of the fine print.
(1) NO SHORT-TERM RENTALS. The ordinance says the ADU 'shall not be used for transient or temporary housing such as a hotel, motel, short term rentals, rooming or boarding house.' State law does not protect you here — it gives you the right to build an ADU and rent it as a home, not the right to run it nightly. If your entire financial model is Airbnb income, Lee is the wrong town, and no appeal to HB 577 will save it. Long-term tenancy is fine.
(2) OWNER-OCCUPANCY IS MANDATORY. You must live in one of the two units — Lee doesn't care which one (which is what the law requires), but you have to actually live there, prove it with a Lee voter or vehicle registration, and if you move out, the town can fine you under RSA 676:17 until you either move back or shut the ADU down. The two units must also stay under common ownership; you cannot condo the ADU off and sell it. That's an absentee-landlord ban in everything but name.
WHERE LEE STILL OVERREACHES. Four narrower spots where state law is on your side or the question is genuinely open. First and most significant: Lee flatly bans ADUs at manufactured housing. State law lists exactly which situations a town may exclude — multi-family, rented or leased land, and townhouses — and manufactured housing is not on that list, while other statutes require manufactured homes to be treated as ordinary single-family dwellings. If your manufactured home is on land you own, you likely have a right the ordinance doesn't acknowledge. (If it's in a leased-lot park, the town probably can still exclude you, because state law does permit an exclusion on rented or leased land.) This is a real fight and it needs a NH land-use attorney, not a website. Second: one leftover sentence from the deleted design section says an ADU 'shall not be closer to the front property line than the primary dwelling unit' — an ADU-only siting rule on top of Zone A's ordinary 50-foot front setback, and state law says a town may not impose setback controls on an ADU beyond what a plain single-family house would face. Third: if you attach the ADU to your house, Lee requires a shared wall AND an interior door between the two units (the door may stay locked). Neither requirement exists in the ADU statute — the current law says nothing at all about interior doors, and it expressly forbids the town from limiting your choice of how the unit is entered and exited. Both are construction controls an ordinary single-family homeowner would never face. The locked-door carve-out means most people won't care, but the shared-wall rule appears to rule out attaching via a breezeway or connector, and if that's what blocks your design it is worth pushing back on. Fourth, and minor: Lee's 200 sq ft minimum size is an ADU-only space limitation that state law doesn't contemplate — low stakes, flagged for completeness.
THE DIMENSIONS YOU'LL BE HELD TO. Zone A setbacks apply: 50 feet from the front right-of-way, 25 feet from side and rear lot lines (35 feet where that line runs along a right-of-way) — unless you're converting a legally nonconforming existing structure, in which case those are waived. Lee's ordinance sets no height limit for a single-family lot with an ADU (the 35-foot caps in the code apply only to condominium and multifamily developments), but confirm against the Lee Building Regulations before you design a two-story unit. Septic and water must be adequate under RSA 485-A:38, but the town cannot make you install separate systems for the two units.
See conflicts[] for the citations and resolved_by_town[] for what Lee fixed on its own. Nothing here is legal advice, and every field in this record is pending human verification.
Primary source: Town zoning ordinance (PDF) — Originally ADOPTED April 9, 1966
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Get My Free Lee ADU Report →House Bill 577 (2025) amended RSA 674:72, effective July 1, 2025. Wherever Lee's ordinance is stricter than this floor, the state law controls. Read the full NH ADU law explainer →
Yes — Lee allows one accessory dwelling unit, attached OR detached, by right in its Residential Zone, with nothing more than a building permit and a certificate of occupancy. Under RSA 674:72 (as amended effective July 1, 2025), one accessory dwelling unit — attached or detached — is allowed by right on single-family lots statewide.
1,000 sq ft — never capped below 750 by the % rule. State law doesn't let any town cap ADU size below 750 sq ft.
Attached or detached (one or the other, not both). Since July 1, 2025, state law allows detached ADUs by right statewide — town provisions that prohibited them are superseded.
None required — no ADU parking rule in the ordinance. State law caps what any town can require at one additional space, located on- or off-site at the owner's choice.
Required — in either the ADU or the primary home. Where owner-occupancy is required, state law lets the owner choose which unit to live in.