Civil rights organization files lawsuit over town’s zoning laws
A statewide civil rights and housing advocacy group is set to file a lawsuit against the Town of Woodbridge and its planning and zoning commission Tuesday, alleging that the local zoning code “unjustifiably restricts” multifamily housing, limiting choices for low-income families, the group told CT Insider.
The lawsuit by the Hartford-based Open Communities Alliance claims Woodbridge’s zoning regulations violate the Connecticut Fair Housing Act, the state’s new zoning reform law and the state constitution. It asks a judge to bar certain elements of the town’s zoning code and require new policies to promote affordable housing.
The lawsuit reignites a fight over affordable housing in Woodbridge that began nearly two years ago, when the alliance — with an application for a multifamily development in hand — led a march to town hall demanding the town overhaul its zoning laws. Officials in the overwhelmingly white, wealthy town rejected significant reforms, leaving a zoning code that blocks multifamily housing on more than 98 percent of its land.
Open Communities Alliance and its allies hope a favorable ruling will not only lead to more affordable housing in Woodbridge but also spur similar action in other towns.
“Woodbridge has effectively built a wall around its borders,” the lawsuit said, “abusing its Statedelegated zoning power to keep multifamily and affordable housing, and the people who live in multifamily and affordable housing, out.”
The suit chronicles a decades-long history of restrictive zoning regulations in Woodbridge and claims that the lack of affordable options there “contributes to the shortage of such housing throughout the region and state.” It argues that restrictive policies in Woodbridge disproportionately harm Black and Latino residents, who are more likely to need affordable multifamily housing.
Though Woodbridge is far from the only white, wealthy Connecticut town to offer little affordable housing, the advocates behind the lawsuit see it as a particularly stark example. Despite bordering a city where more than 60 percent of residents are Black or Latino and more than a quarter live in poverty, Woodbridge is less than 10 percent Black and Latino, with only 1.3 percent of its housing units classified as “affordable.”
“Woodbridge is particularly interesting because it doesn’t have a lot of affordable housing, and yet it’s right next to the city of New Haven,” said Erin Boggs, the Open Communities Alliance founder and executive director. “The lack of affordable housing just doesn’t make sense.”
Woodbridge first selectman Beth Heller did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Tuesday.
In late 2020, a group of civil rights attorneys, led by Open Communities Alliance, asked Woodbridge to approve their application to build a four-unit home on a 1.5-acre lot zoned for singlefamily housing that they had purchased in partnership with a developer, and to overhaul the town’s planning and zoning laws.
Amid pushback from some residents, Woodbridge declined to approve the application and made just small tweaks to zoning regulations, permitting multifamily housing only on the less than 2 percent of the town’s residential area served by public water and sewer infrastructure, provided developers first gain approval from the local
Planning and Zoning Commission.
The new lawsuit escalates that fight, in the wake of what Open Communities Alliance and its allies consider insufficient changes. Plaintiffs include an LLC affiliated with Open Communities Alliance, the Stamford-based foundation Garden Homes Fund and its affiliated LLC, as well two white Woodbridge residents who say they suffer from the Woodbridge’s lack of racial and socioeconomic diversity.
Anika Singh Lemar, a clinical professor at Yale Law School representing the plaintiffs, called Woodbridge a “glorified homeowners association,” whose housing rules exist primarily to preserve the town as white and wealthy.
Singh Lemar said Woodbridge uses environmental concerns as a pretense “to regulate how wealthy you have to be to live” there.
“What towns like Woodbridge have done is they have selectively embraced faux-environmentalism as a rationale for their zoning ordinances, when it suits their preferences,” Singh Lemar said. “There is nothing environmentally friendly about single-family
McMansions on two-acre lots five miles from a major employer.”
The groups behind the lawsuit hope a ruling in their favor would have implications beyond Woodbridge, creating precedent for similar legal action in other towns. Connecticut last year passed a bill encouraging towns to promote fair housing but allowing them to opt out of certain key provisions. Recently, more than half of Connecticut towns missed their deadline to submit an affordable housing plan as required under the new law.
Thomas Silverstein, an attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, who has worked with the plaintiffs in the Woodbridge case, said a ruling for the plaintiffs could even have a national impact. “That can provide a model and a template for entities that are interested in promoting the development of affordable housing to show injury in similar circumstances all across the country,” Silverstein said.