Housing crisis not a game of Monopoly

There’s no ignoring the most outrageous idea in the 135-page draft of a regional housing plan from the Western Connecticut Council of Governments. In short, it suggests towns could buy their way out of developing affordable housing by paying a neighboring municipality that has a surplus.

As a strategy, it’s like changing the rules in the game of Monopoly so people living on Park Place or Boardwalk could pay a penalty to keep housing on the likes of Baltic and Connecticut avenues.

The good side of the report is that it gives a sense of what council leadership is thinking. That bad side is what they’re thinking.

Still, Connecticut has a reliable allergy to the word “regionalization,” so it’s worth embracing that the council is striving for solutions that stubbornly elude most of our towns.

The issue is universal in Connecticut, so the rest of the state can learn from the approach taken by the Western Connecticut Council of Governments, which represents Bethel, Bridgewater, Brookfield, Danbury, Darien, Greenwich, New Canaan, New Fairfield, New Milford, Newtown, Norwalk, Redding, Ridgefield, Sherman, Stamford, Weston, Westport and Wilton.

If you want to try a game other than Monopoly, guess which of those municipalities reached mandated housing goals. That’s right, the answer is Danbury, Norwalk and Stamford. The only cities in the group.

If the buyout approach is embraced, it will not lead to the creation of more affordable housing in Connecticut.

Nor would it expand diversity in our towns. That doesn’t seem to be the council’s intent. The word “diversity” appears only three times in those 138 pages, always preceded by “economic.”

Diversifying our communities demands hard work, which proposals like this one simply dodge. It reads like misdirection to maintain the status quo.

“I think that suggesting policy like that moves us backward in the state of Connecticut and not forward,” said Christie Stewart, director of Fairfield County’s Center for Housing Opportunity.

The report lands at a time when two forces are colliding. The clock is ticking to the end of a five-year deadline set in 2017 that requires municipalities to submit affordable housing plans. Meanwhile, advocates are declaring a housing crisis in Connecticut. The pandemic spurred the housing shortage. Housing prices are so elevated that they have created a trap. Even homeowners tempted by the lure of selling their property at a high profit margin face the same sticker shock when looking to relocate. Homelessness, which was steadily trending downward, reversed course in 2021.

The draft does spotlight key nuances of the issue. For example, data on residents who live and work in the same community range from Stamford (39 percent) to Bridgewater (8 percent). Stamford, of course, is Connecticut’s shining business center, while Bridgewater is a leafy suburb with few jobs to speak of.

Wednesday is the deadline for the public to comment on the plan. Our opinion is that Connecticut’s towns should invest in letting people in, rather than locking them out.

Still, Connecticut has a reliable allergy to the word “regionalization,” so it’s worth embracing that the council is striving for solutions that stubbornly elude most of our towns.