Officials: City needs additional affordable housing
STAMFORD — The push toward more affordable housing across Connecticut has picked up steam in the new year.
A bill making its way through Hartford maintains that housing is a human right. Nonprofit organization Desegregate CT, which advocates for more housing to promote racial equity, snagged national attention. A
clash over expanded urban housing authorities sparked fierce debate between urban leaders and some wealthy Fairfield County municipalities.
Even Stamford has continued to explore its own affordable housing needs, and it’s started with looking at what is already available in the city.
Stamford’s affordable housing stock
With affordable housing, the story often starts at median income. Federally, how much money a person or family makes compared to their communities determines whether they qualify for government subsidized housing.
For the entire United States in 2020, that number was $78,500. In Stamford, the median income for a family of four is almost double that: $143,400.
Affordable housing attempts to ease rents for people at different levels of poverty below the median income. Often, people who make either 50 or 30 percent of the area median income — $71,000 and $43,020, respectively — qualify for housing relief.
“There are plenty of jurisdictions where people would say, ‘well, that's not so bad,’” said Jonathan Gottlieb, who heads nonprofit real estate developer Rippowam Corporation. “But when you think about what people have to spend for rent in Stanford, that really isn't adequate.”
For close to 20 years, the city has required that 10 percent of the units in any new multi-family development go towards the BMR program. The ordinance creates additional housing units, mostly for people or families who earn 50 percent of the area’s median income.
“A lot of what’s considered to be affordable housing in Stamford is really just older, substandard housing,” Building and Land Technology Co-President Ted Ferrarone said. Since Stamford launched its Below Market Housing program, BLT has built 359 apartments in Harbor Point. “I think there’s a real need to create different kinds of existing housing … that is at a newer standard.”
BLT’s 350-plus affordable units fall in that sweet spot, but that’s only part of the picture.
Stamford’s BMR program was meant to target middle income members of the community, not everyone.
“This program was created 20 years ago, and it was created specifically for working families,” said Emily Gordon, who specializes in affordable housing issues
for Stamford’s Land Use Bureau. “It was meant for teachers and nurses and police officers — people that are making maybe a modest salary, but that wouldn't otherwise be able to live in the community that they work in.”
That program has created more than 1,000 BMR units in Stamford, but they are for a very specific population.
“It’s created a lot of product in a narrow band,” Ferrarone said.
“Deeply affordable housing” — which provides units for people earning between 25 and 35 percent of the area median income — is a different ballgame. Notable examples of deeply affordable housing in Stamford include Franklin Apartments and two smaller buildings on Woodland Place, both run by social service provider Inspirica.
“The need really breaks down by income level,” said Vincent Tufo, CEO of Charter Oak Communities, Stamford’s housing authority. Tufo said the greatest empirical need for more affordable housing lies at the deeply affordable level.
But it’s also some of the hardest demand to satisfy.
“The external operating subsidies (for housing vouchers) are very, very limited. In other words, there's only so much that is available to us or that's been allocated to us, we always try to stretch that and increase that,” Tufo continued. “But, again, there's never enough to go around.”
In the past, Stamford has subsidized deeply affordable housing with the help of fee-in-lieu money. BLT helped fund Franklin Apartments through fees-in-lieu. But soon, Stamford will move toward a more public approach of funding affordable housing projects.
Whereas market developers used to come to the zoning board with nonprofits in tow, the Board of Representatives recently approved an affordable housing trust fund, which allows Stamford to solicit proposals for affordable housing projects to be bankrolled by the fee-in-lieu confers.
What Stamford needs
Experts across the board agree with Tufo: The neediest are also some of the most underserved.
A new report published by the nonprofit Regional Plan Association found that Stamford has 4,885 less affordable-to-renter units than it needs for people living between zero and 30 percent of the area median income. To be considered affordable, these units would need to cost no more than $1,075 per month for a family of four.
“We tend to be, especially with housing, very reactive. A developer brings something forward; we react to it,” said Christie Stewart, director of Fairfield County's Center for Housing Opportunity. “What we're suggesting is that towns, communities, state becomes much more proactive about really understanding what it needs, where it needs it, what it needs to look like, and then going after aligning resources to make that happen.”
What’s coming
The path toward a more proactive approach to affordable housing in Stamford could start with a new housing needs assessment. For the first time in almost 20 years, the city is attempting just that.
The city announced more than a year ago that it would embark on a housing study that would assess Stamford’s needs. Land Use Bureau officials say that study officially begun in the new year and is being prepared by New York-based firm HR & A Advisors.
The plan would give city officials a better idea of what Stamford’s housing needs concretely are. Plus, the new trust fund hinges on it.
To disburse money from the affordable housing trust fund in two years, the city must complete the affordable housing study and prove how projects meet the priorities set in it.