The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Affordable housing doesn’t have to be a political loser
Say this for Tim Herbst, the once and likely future candidate for governor: He’s right about the perceived politics of affordable housing.
“If this legislation is passed, and if the governor signs this into law, I’m telling all of you, Republican and Democrat alike, I believe you are going to see a bipartisan uprising in this state the likes of which you have never seen,” he said.
His testimony was in opposition to proposed changes to the state’s zoning laws that would grant city housing authorities some jurisdiction in neighboring towns, and it comes in the broader context of advancing efforts to bring affordable housing to the state’s suburbs. The former Trumbull first selectman’s comments presage a backlash to such moves, and he’s not wrong to think it would happen.
This the language of reactionaryism, where grievance holds sway and where someone is always taking something away from you. And since nothing is as emotionally fraught as housing (except maybe schools), it’s prime territory for exploiting fears.
It’s long proven politically potent, as recently as the 2016 presidential election.
Columnist Alma Rutgers in Greenwich Time recently asked, considering the housing proposals on the table are about solutions that would benefit all Connecticut, including economically, why are Republicans demonizing them? It’s not just Herbst, who is also leading opposition to multifamily housing to Woodbridge — Republicans are speaking almost as one against anything that would upend the housing status quo, even as they often say at the same time they think affordable housing is a fine idea, just not the way it’s being discussed.
The reason is they think it’s good politics. There’s no question state Republicans are flailing. The Trump presidency put them in their worst light, and they need a unifying issue to build toward a comeback in 2022.
Most messaging so far has been predictable stuff about tax hikes and tolls, neither of which the governor is currently pursuing. But considering the last three Democratic gubernatorial wins have been virtual toss-ups, it’s not crazy for Republicans to think a major push on an issue with salience in the suburbs could put them over the top.
Gov. Ned Lamont has made clear what he thinks is the best way forward on affordable housing — incentives. Make it worth their while. “I’m going to use incentives any way I can to make sure there’s more housing and more affordable housing in those downtown areas,” he told the Hearst Connecticut Media editorial board recently.
When pressed on what he would favor should incentives fall short, he demurred. “I’m more inclined towards a carrot than I am a stick, and see where it goes from there.”
That likely means doing nothing. Most suburbs don’t want incentives to change; they want to be told they’re just fine staying as they are, even as Black Lives Matter signs outnumber Black residents in some neighborhoods.
There’s a lot of talk in Connecticut of a suburban-dominated Legislature, but it’s not some trick of gerrymandering or an Electoral College illusion. Our cities are small, and because we’re so balkanized, most people in the state live in smaller towns, and so get more representation. That makes any proposal that works explicitly in favor of cities a tougher sell.
Republicans think they have a winning issue, and can be guaranteed to push housing to the front along with Lamont’s abortive efforts to regionalize schools. We’ve seen urban Democrats champion zoning overhauls, but the views of their suburban counterparts are less clear. No doubt they feel electorally threatened by anything that disrupts the status quo.
But so what? Why did they run for office anyway? If it was just to preserve their towns’ privileged status, congratulations on a job that would have been done without them. If it was about making a better future for Connecticut, that means supporting the agenda of Desegregate CT, the Open Communities Alliance and others working to make the state a better place.
The cynics who believe affordable housing is a political loser don’t have to be right. This isn’t 1974, and the economic case for continuing to make land-use decisions as we always have is not strong.
But it requires some courage on the part of suburbanites, including the Greenwich guy in the governor’s mansion, to prove otherwise. This is their chance.