"NMHC's QAP asks whether the project 'has the appropriate zoning' -- appropriate under whose zoning code, since Saipan, Tinian, and Rota don't all answer to the same one?"
Confirming which zoning law actually governs on Saipan -- a prior suspension attempt was found invalid
Public Law 6-32, effective June 27, 1989 and codified at 2 CMC Sections 7201-7255, created the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Zoning Code and established a Commonwealth Zoning Board to prepare a zoning plan for legislative adoption and, once adopted, to administer it. The statute is explicit about its own geographic limits: "this chapter shall not apply to the islands of the First and Second Senatorial Districts except by enactment of an appropriate local law so applying this chapter to a particular senatorial district" (2 CMC Section 7212(b)(1)). CNMI's three senatorial districts are Rota (First), Tinian and Aguiguan (Second), and Saipan and the Northern Islands (Third) -- so the 1989 Commonwealth Zoning Code, by its own text, reached only Saipan and the Northern Islands automatically.
Saipan Local Law 8-7, effective April 29, 1993, approved the Saipan Zoning Law (codified at 10 CMC Sections 3511-3517) under that 1989 framework. Saipan Local Law 9-1, effective August 15, 1994, then purported to suspend the Saipan Zoning Law and transfer the Zoning Board's staff and equipment to the (now-defunct) Office of Coastal Resource Management. CNMI Attorney General Opinion 04-07, issued March 11, 2004, concluded that the Third Senatorial District delegation lacked the authority to enact that suspension, and that the Saipan Zoning Law therefore remained -- and remains -- in force. Today's operative document, per the Zoning Board and Office's own FY2024 report, is "the Saipan Zoning Law of 2013 as Amended," together with the Nuisance Abatement and Blighted Property Maintenance Act of 2018.
A separate 1994 executive reorganization (Executive Order 94-3) abolished the original, board-based structure created by PL 6-32 and moved its functions into a Division of Zoning inside what is now the Department of Lands and Natural Resources (DLNR) -- but expressly did not touch the Zoning Board of Rota, created by a different, separate Rota local law (Rota Local Law 8-2), which the reorganization order states "is not affected by this subsection." A Commonwealth Law Revision Commission annotation to this history adds a further wrinkle, noting that "the continuing validity of the regulations promulgated by the Zoning Board" prior to that 1994 reorganization "is in question" -- even though the underlying Saipan Zoning Law itself was separately confirmed still in force by the 2004 Attorney General opinion. This is a real legal-history complication rather than a single clean chain of title, and a developer relying on a specific pre-2004 zoning regulation should confirm its current validity rather than assume it.
Three islands, three different -- or absent -- zoning regimes
| Island / district | Governing law | Administering body | Confirmation authority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saipan and the Northern Islands (Third Senatorial District) | Saipan Zoning Law of 2013, as amended (10 CMC Section 3511 et seq.), under the 1989 Commonwealth Zoning Code framework | Commonwealth Zoning Board / Zoning Office | Board members confirmed by the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation (SNILD) |
| Rota (First Senatorial District) | Its own Zoning Code (10 CMC Section 1701 et seq.) | Zoning Board of Rota (created by Rota Local Law 8-2) -- a separate body from the Commonwealth Zoning Board | Not affected by the 1994 Saipan-side executive reorganization |
| Tinian and Aguiguan (Second Senatorial District) | No dedicated Tinian zoning code or Zoning Board was confirmed to exist in this research pass | Unconfirmed | Per 2 CMC Section 7212(b), the Commonwealth Zoning Code would apply to Tinian only if Tinian's own legislative delegation separately enacted a local law opting in; no such law was located |
This table reflects what this research pass could confirm from CNMI statutory text, the CNMI Law Revision Commission's own annotations, and the Zoning Board and Office's FY2024 report. The absence of a confirmed Tinian zoning statute is a genuine research gap, not a certainty that Tinian has zero land-use review of any kind -- it should be confirmed directly with DLNR, the Tinian Municipal government, and NMHC before relying on it.
Tinian carries an additional, well-documented land-use complication independent of zoning: the U.S. Department of Defense has held a lease over roughly the northern two-thirds of the island (the Tinian Military Lease Area) since 1983, originally for 50 years with a 50-year renewal option, split into an Exclusive Military Use Area and a Leaseback Area of roughly 7,779 acres in the island's middle third (for which CNMI issues residents grazing and agricultural permits). A candidate Tinian site should be checked against this lease boundary before any assumption is made about what land-use process -- Commonwealth, municipal, or military -- actually governs it.
Commonwealth-wide agencies still apply regardless of an island's zoning status: BECQ's earthmoving and coastal-zone permitting (Phase 2) and DPW's Building Safety Code Division review under the 2018 International Building Code (Phase 1) both operate on Saipan, Tinian, and Rota alike. Zoning entitlement and building/environmental permitting are legally separate approval layers in the CNMI, and a site lacking a confirmed zoning process (as may be the case on Tinian) does not necessarily mean it lacks building or environmental review.
This directly affects a developer chasing the QAP's Criterion 17 Tinian/Rota bonus discussed in Phase 1: on Rota, "appropriate zoning" for the QAP's Criterion 3 (below) would run through the separate Zoning Board of Rota under 10 CMC Section 1701 et seq.; on Tinian, "appropriate zoning" may not correspond to any codified approval process at all, since none was confirmed to exist in this research. Whether Criterion 3's full 7 points are even a reachable target for a Tinian site -- the way they plainly are for a Saipan or Rota site -- should be confirmed directly with NMHC before it is assumed either way.
NMHC's own entitlement-readiness criterion is all-or-nothing, and cites an unexplained "201 G" exemption
Criterion 3 of the QAP's scoring system, "Project has the appropriate zoning or the applicant has secured the necessary exemptions/variances to construct the project as proposed," awards either 0 or 7 points -- there is no partial credit. Full points require that "the applicant has obtained all necessary zoning and entitlements for the property, including subdivision approvals and upon receipt of credits, is ready to proceed with the development of the project without any additional development approvals other than customary land disturbance and building permits." Zero points apply if the "project is not appropriately zoned and/or does not conform to State Land Use regulations or requires 201 G, variances, subdivision approval or any other exemption from any local or state land use restrictions" (all phrases quoted directly from the QAP).
The reference to "201 G" is unexplained anywhere in the QAP and does not match the CNMI Code citation format used elsewhere in the document (CNMI statutory citations in this research otherwise run, for example, as "2 CMC Section 7212"). This research pass could not identify what specific CNMI statute, regulation, or permit type "201 G" refers to, and located no independent source explaining it. This should be confirmed directly with NMHC or CNMI zoning counsel -- it is flagged here explicitly rather than guessed at.
The practical consequence is that Criterion 3 rewards full entitlement resolution as of the application date, not merely an application filed or a hearing scheduled -- a materially higher bar than the graduated, partial-credit scoring used elsewhere in the same QAP (most of the other 16 criteria are also binary 0/X point structures, but several, like Criterion 8's credit-to-cost ratio or Criterion 15's feasibility factors, award points on a sliding or additive scale). Given NMHC's real-world Saipan zoning throughput described above (thousands of permits and clearances a year, but only 10 Conditional Use hearings, three of which were postponed for incomplete submissions) and the multi-month, multi-agency lease and Department of Public Lands process described in Phase 2, a developer's entitlement strategy has to run well ahead of, not in parallel with, the LIHTC application if the full 7 points are the goal.
Where this goes wrong
- Treating "CNMI zoning law" as one unified code that automatically covers Saipan, Tinian, and Rota alike -- the 1989 Commonwealth Zoning Code (2 CMC Sections 7201-7255) applies by its own terms only to the Third Senatorial District (Saipan and the Northern Islands) unless another district's legislative delegation separately opts in.
- Assuming Rota's zoning applications are decided by the Commonwealth Zoning Board -- Rota has its own, separately created Zoning Board of Rota (Rota Local Law 8-2) under its own zoning code (10 CMC Section 1701 et seq.), unaffected by the 1994 reorganization that changed the Saipan-side board's structure.
- Assuming Tinian has a codified zoning approval process comparable to Saipan's or Rota's without confirming directly with DLNR, NMHC, and the Tinian Municipal government first -- no dedicated Tinian zoning statute or board was confirmed to exist in this research, and roughly the northern two-thirds of the island is additionally subject to a long-term U.S. military lease.
- Treating Criterion 3 as a partial-credit or in-progress-eligible scoring item -- it is 0 or 7 points, with full points requiring every zoning, entitlement, and subdivision approval already obtained as of the application date, not merely applied for or scheduled for hearing.
- Assuming the phrase "without any additional development approvals other than customary land disturbance and building permits" in Criterion 3's full-points row means BECQ or DPW permitting can happen after the LIHTC application is filed -- that carve-out describes what is still allowed to be pending for full credit; the zoning/subdivision entitlement itself must already be resolved.
- Guessing at what the QAP's unexplained "201 G" reference in Criterion 3 means rather than confirming it directly with NMHC or CNMI zoning counsel -- this research could not identify the citation and flags it explicitly rather than assuming an interpretation.
- Relying on a pre-2004 Saipan zoning regulation without confirming it survived the CNMI Law Revision Commission's own noted uncertainty about the continuing validity of regulations the original, pre-1994 Zoning Board promulgated -- the underlying 2013 Saipan Zoning Law itself is confirmed in force by a 2004 Attorney General opinion, but that does not automatically validate every older regulation issued under the earlier board structure.
- Treating the Zoning Board and Office's FY2024 throughput statistics (99% of that year's permits completed within the fiscal year) as a guaranteed processing time for any single Conditional Use application -- three of that same year's ten Conditional Use hearings were postponed for incomplete submissions, and no fixed statutory decision deadline for an initial Board determination was found in this research.
- HUD
- LIHTC
- State QAPs
- IRS § 42
- Housing Finance Agencies