Time to end Trumbull’s multifamily moratorium
Trumbull’s multifamily rental housing moratorium is bad for its economy, antithetical to the town’s familyfriendly values and should expire this winter.
In January 2019, after approving multiple rental developments, Trumbull’s Planning and Zoning Commission enacted a multifamily rental moratorium with the ostensible goal of studying “the impact of the multifamily residential rental housing units recently approved, or able to be approved, in the town.” One year later — with the support of First Selectman Vicki Tesero — the P& Z commission extended the moratorium, with Tesero stating that “the additional 12- month timeout will provide the opportunity for us to further examine the impact on our town of policy changes and approvals. ... The data from that occupancy will be an important component to examining the impact on town services.”
Now, after two years of study, the results are clear: the apartments are a boon to Trumbull’s economy and tax base. A May 2021 article titled “How are apartments affecting Trumbull Schools” reported on the Town Council’s findings. Instead of school enrollments overwhelming the budget, each of the complexes is generating roughly $ 1 million in tax revenue; even 10 Trumbull, which has a tax abatement for a decade, will begin generating a similar amount at the end of that period. All of this is great news for the town, since Trumbull actually lost population between 2010 and 2020, going from 36,000 residents to 35,000. Our businesses, economy and tax base can’t continue to thrive unless the community begins to grow again.
But the multifamily moratorium isn’t just bad for Trumbull’s economy: it goes against the family- friendly values Trumbull stands for. Officials promised that the new apartments wouldn’t be another Avalon Gates ( aka “the Royce”), which had 130 school- aged children living in a 341 apartment complex. According to Tesero, the town conducted a study and found that these apartments featured living spaces like dens and family- friendly amenities like playgrounds — features they disallowed in the new developments. Something has gone seriously wrong when planners and officials make places less livable to discourage families from moving in. Are children and families in apartments less deserving of places to watch movies or play outside with friends? Are families that rent apartments less welcome in Trumbull?
The entire discussion about apartments and school costs shows how exclusionary single- family zoning has warped the way Americans see the world. Trumbull spends an average of $ 16,661 per student, so officials multiplied that number by the number of school- age children in the new apartment complexes ( even though the town admitted that costs don’t scale per student, since building costs and salaries are spread out). But no one asks single- family homes to justify themselves in the same way. Imagine a family with three school- age children built a 3,000- squarefoot single- family home on a one1acre lot. Based on Trumbull’s approximately 34 mill rate, a house assessed at $ 600,000 would owe nearly $ 21,000 in property taxes; in other words, enough to “pay” for just one of the three school- age children.
Of course, we don’t do that calculus because we see single family homes — and the families that can afford them — as right and proper. We treat families with the means to afford an expensive home on a large lot as worthy, while we run clunky cost- benefit analyses on families that rent apartments. We ( rightly) encourage children living in singlefamily homes to have playscapes and treehouses, while we actively deny children in rental apartments so much as a jungle gym.
Trumbull shouldn’t be afraid of incremental, iterative development. The town exploded in a 20- year period after World War II, quadrupling in size as an autocentric suburb. Today, we can’t let fear- mongering about apartments allow our economy to stagnate and local businesses to go without customers. End the multifamily moratorium and let the market decide what kind of demand there is for all the amenities Trumbull has to offer ( well, as much as the free market exists within our current zoning framework).
We can and should grow our population, gradually intensify our residential and business nodes and build a more dynamic Trumbull moving forward.
Tom Broderick is a Connecticut educator and Trumbull resident.