Over the next five years, as Connecticut officials think broadly about where and how they want to develop housing, encourage economic development and preserve open space, they’ll put climate change at the center of those conversations.
That’s according to the latest draft of the Plan of Conservation and Development, which the Continuing Legislative Committee on State Planning and Development passed with overwhelming support on Thursday. The state updates these plans every five years, and they are meant to provide high-level guidance to state agencies on the policies around land use.
The plan aims to build communities that are healthy, have thriving economies and enough housing, take care of resources and are connected and inclusive — all with a focus on climate change at its core.
“It is based at its foundation, on these guiding principles,” said Rebecca Augur, the state’s responsible growth coordinator, in a presentation to lawmakers last month. “These are really values and value statements that are infused in the targets, policies and implementation measures that are included in the plan.”
The plan, which still needs to be approved by the full legislature, also takes a new approach to determining where to put more resources and development.
Plans in the past have mapped the best places to build based on several factors, including the feasibility of development near public transit and whether building would promote regional cooperation. These were called “priority funding areas,” and were concentrated largely along the shoreline and up the Interstate 91 corridor between New Haven and Hartford.
The new mapping instead focuses on “activity zones,” which are parts of the state where there is already a good deal of housing, community centers and jobs. This shows major hubs around larger cities such as Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport and Stamford.
Augur described the approach as “descriptive not prescriptive,” in that it shows where there is already activity rather than suggesting officials guide funding to certain areas.
For projects that are over $200,000, state law requires that agencies document how they’re following the principles of the plan. The new draft recommends increasing that threshold to $1 million.
The plan calls for leveraging public and private funds to push development, promoting regional cooperation and improving data analysis and collection. It aims to help the state plan for more housing, grow the economy and protect the state from climate change.
Connecticut has long grappled with a lack of housing that’s affordable and available to its lowest-income residents. That crisis has grown more acute over the past few years.
The state plan as drafted would direct agencies to focus on building more diverse types of housing, and help towns increase sewer capacity. It would also reduce cost burden by combining housing, transportation and energy costs where possible.
Erin Boggs, executive director of the Open Communities Alliance, said she feared that focusing on areas of the state that already have growth will increase segregation.
“The big picture is that the plan is basically saying, ‘Let’s invest in further development in places that are already developed,’” Boggs said. “ … And so when you put that together with the history of exclusion in some places, that is kind of a perfect storm for continued and entrenched segregation.”
Pete Harrison, Connecticut director for the Regional Plan Association, said in public testimony that he thinks the plan is a good step toward more growth. He said he thinks Connecticut will likely be a state that sees population growth as other areas of the country become hard to live in because of rising temperatures.
“We are not used to growth in Connecticut, but because of climate change, perhaps counterintuitively, it is coming, and planning for it now is urgently needed,” Harrison said.
The plan also calls for preserving forests, farmland, wetlands and animal habitats as well as architecturally and historically significant sites. It would discourage more development in areas prone to flooding or sea level rise and push for more energy efficient development.
The state’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection submitted public testimony that said officials there “strongly support” the plan.
The draft also proposes regional solutions to many problems associated with climate change.
“We recognize that many of our priorities are best addressed at the regional level, due to the way our economy, our environment, our societies function, and so we want to ensure that agencies, when possible, are seeking regional solutions,” Augur said.
Lawmakers largely praised the plan at Thursday’s short meeting, citing the work that the Office of Policy and Management, which oversees the Office of Responsible Growth, had done conducting meetings and holding opportunities for the public to weigh in on the plan.
The full legislature is required to approve the new plan within 45 days of committee approval.