Real change needed to housing statutes
In response to state Rep. Jennifer Leeper’s op-ed, “Coming together to solve Fairfield’s housing needs”, it’s important to clarify and correct her piece. The failures of the Connecticut Affordable Housing Land Use Appeals Procedure, also known as 8-30g, have been an issue for years. Each election year we hear platitudes from politicians, yet we have not seen any meaningful changes to this law, which has done little to create affordable housing units. What we have seen instead is bill after bill that also attempts to tie the hands of local officials and shift land use planning away from local control.
“We are facing a housing crisis in Connecticut and we need smart solutions that diversify housing in a way that works for our town.” Leeper says that 90,000 units are needed, but does not cite the source of this information or its accuracy. What is the source for this and other figures which are given to justify the continued existence of 8-30g and recent bills proposed to mandate housing development?
Leeper continues, “Our Town Plan and Zoning Commission needs a tangible, proactive and actionable plan to clearly lay out what the goals are and how the town is going to achieve them. While Fairfield’s TPZ adopted the recommendations of the town’s Transit Oriented Development Study, they never implemented those recommendations into the town’s zoning regulations.”
Fact: It is simply not true that the Fairfield TPZ hasn’t acted.
Fairfield’s TPZ, which I am a member of, has been very committed to affordable housing and creating a diversity of housing. In 2021, after months of study and work, the TPZ expanded our accessory dwelling unit regulations with input from housing advocates and other stakeholders. Regarding our TOD, the TPZ has implemented recommendations from the study into our regulations and our approvals. This has resulted in a great deal of density including 10 percent affordable units in the Commerce Drive/Fairfield Metro Center area, and we anticipate more to come.
The TOD study is also helping to guide the TPZ in a currently underway planning process to revise regulations for our Center Business District with the goal of expanding housing diversity while being cognizant of infrastructure capacity and climate change, and while also retaining the small-town ambiance of our downtown area.
The TPZ is also in the middle of updating the Plan of Conservation & Development, and we are exploring ways to add density within the capacity and aging infrastructure of our Town, the need for climate change resiliency planning, and with due consideration of the differing attributes and constraints in different areas of our Town.
Additionally, Leeper need only to review Fairfield’s affordable housing plan issued pursuant to 8-30j which took countless hours, significant effort and consideration of public comment and input.
While I appreciate Leeper’s bill that called for studying our affordable housing laws, the bill never got out of committee, and anyway, many would argue that it’s well past time for studies; we need action now. While our affordable housing law was a laudable goal when it was first enacted in 1990, it’s been a failure, seeming to lead to as much litigation as it does affordable housing.
Few towns in Connecticut have met the 10 percent affordable unit target that didn’t already have the 10 percent in 1989, given that it is almost a mathematical impossibility. In the last few sessions, the Connecticut General Assembly has actually put forth several bills that if passed, would conflict with 830g’s 10 percent affordable housing goal, yet there has a been a glaring lack of attention to 8-30g, its flaws, and its interrelationship with these recent legislative attempts.
CT169Strong, an advocacy group which I am a part of, has put forth ideas to reform 8-30g including lowering the threshold to enable towns to plan better and sooner without being inundated, and expanding the law’s restrictive definition of what qualifies as affordable housing. The group recommends removing the burden-shifting component of 8-30g that requires zoning commissions to justify denials in court, rather than applicants having to prove the commission acted in error. This burden shifting is damaging: an unintended consequence is that commissions are bound to rule for developments that may well be harmful, due to the lack of well-heeled residents to finance lawyers and experts at public hearings.
This means commissions may have to approve a harmful application without being fully informed of its adverse impacts to health, safety and the environment. Or, if a commission denies or reduces the scale of such an application, it is likely the court will overturn the TPZ’s decision, due to lack of expertbacked evidence of harm having been presented at the public hearing. It is hard to believe the legislature in 1990 intended zoning commissions to make permanent land use decisions without being fully informed of all the adverse consequences of their decisions, but that is exactly what burden-shifting leads to.
Leeper and other legislators are encouraged to work with groups such as CT169 Strong to put forth meaningful change to 8-30g so that municipalities get credit for diligently working on housing diversity without being penalized in perpetuity for failing to achieve the elusive goal of 10 percent. It’s time to stop the election year platitudes and create change.