This is the fifth of a five-part series exploring issues surrounding Connecticut’s affordable housing needs. Parts One, Two, Three and Four are here.
In this final piece, I propose bolder steps to attaining Connecticut’s affordable housing goals. All of them could promote more lower-cost housing. None is intended to make life difficult for local land use boards and town planners, if they will screen out the myths and misconceptions that should not be part of the conversation.
These proposals are intended to match up with and avoid or ameliorate the obstacles I have identified in prior articles.
My list:
Adopt a standard for inland wetlands and watercourses commissions along the lines of, “No commission shall impose stricter impact standards when evaluating a regulated activities permit for a middle housing or multi-family housing development plan than for other applications.” Yes, this may be hard to enforce, but sometimes just setting a rule of conduct is helpful. When a wetlands agency applies inconsistent standards, the problem is usually apparent to the development professionals. Note that this proposal does not promote laxity in wetlands regulation or permitting, only consistency.
Amend our state sewer statutes to require every municipal sewer system with more than X gallons of capacity to set aside X percent (five, perhaps) specifically to support middle and multi-family housing. This will force sewer commissions to do a modicum of capacity planning for multi-family and affordable proposals.
Add a property owner’s “bill of rights” to the state sewer statutes, stating that, “A property owner who proposes middle or multi-family housing on land within a designated public sewer service district shall have a right of access to the sewer system, provided sufficient capacity is available and an extension and/or connection is physically feasible and will meet engineering requirements.”
Further, with respect to sewers, which are often essential to multi-family housing: “No sewer commission may establish or administer a capacity allocation system that restricts sewer discharge available to a specific parcel to the amount necessary for one single-family home.”
Sewer commissions sometimes adopt a “sewer matrix” in which no property owner, regardless of acreage, is entitled to more capacity than a single-family home. While commissions claim this is a planning tool, it is often used to preserve the status quo of single-family zoning and prevent lots from being converted to middle housing or multi-family units.
In addition, the legislature should adopt a standard for what are called “sewer avoidance areas,” so sewerable land cannot be arbitrarily designated as unsewerable. There should also be a uniform, statewide standard for sewage discharge calculations per person, which can range locally from 50 to 150 gallons per day, per person; the unjustified high end of the scale, by limiting residential density, is an exclusionary tool.
Modify 8-30g by eliminating the “industrial zone exemption,” and clarifying the state’s point system for four-year moratoria from § 8-30g applications. The industrial exemption was adopted in 1995 ostensibly to protect heavy industry from having its business disrupted or curtailed by complaints from adjacent multi-family development. But the exemption has been deployed, for example, to exclude affordable housing in “light industrial” areas where the uses are nominally industrial but have no impacts incompatible with housing.
As to the moratorium rules, in recent years, several towns have devised a strategy of approving affordable units only to achieve an ongoing exemption from § 8-30g. But these rules are intended to be a rest stop, not an off ramp. At a minimum, the General Assembly should clarify that towns seeking a moratorium must submit proof of annual, ongoing compliance with maximum income and rent/price limits at the units claimed for points; cannot claim points from one development to achieve multiple moratoria; and must deduct points if they demolish existing affordable units to make way for new ones.
It is sad to see so many religious institutions shrink or go out of existence, but the reality is upon us. Connecticut should, therefore, follow California’s lead and allow multi-family and affordable housing as-of-right on underutilized or vacated religious properties.
Modular housing (built in a factory, transported to a site) and manufactured homes have proven to be less expensive than so-called “stick-built” homes. Each type has strict construction code. Connecticut has a statute that purports to prohibit discrimination against certain types of manufactured homes, but we need a more affirmative statement from the legislature in support of these alternatives.
The General Assembly should revise the 2021 Public Act to prevent towns from “opting out” of the ban on excessive parking requirements. In my experience, no town that has opted out had a valid reason to do so. Excessive parking is exclusionary and results in unnecessary paving. And bear in mind that limits on parking and minimum unit size, in combination, can make a big difference in density on many parcels.
In the context of group homes for the disabled, our courts have recognized that special permits, which are highly discretionary zoning or planning commission decisions, can be a tool of discrimination. The General Assembly should take this cue and identify categories of housing, such as all middle housing (two to four units) proposals and multi-family plans for less than 100 units, and direct that they cannot be required to obtain a special permit. Commissions should specify clear, objective, standards that, if met, will result in site plan approval.
Finally, while our state has done exemplary work to reduce homelessness, assisting this population suffers from the fact that while towns have an amorphous obligation to “care for the poor,” there is no state mandate that towns in their zoning regulations designate at least some sites for a homeless shelter, and so most do not. Siting a shelter could be a regional/multi-town cooperative effort, but the legislature needs to direct all towns to participate, through land use, in sheltering the homeless. Our state’s supportive housing programs that try to transition the homeless to permanent housing are heroic, but the first step on the ladder is providing more places to come in from the cold.
I thank the Connecticut Mirror for this opportunity to present this series; and my assistant Annamaria Zocco, and my housing friends (you know who you are), for helping me prepare them.