Town evaluates affordable housing progress

GREENWICH — Does Greenwich need more affordable housing?

It’s a complicated and high-stakes question — one that is impacted by state laws and local zoning rules and marked by high emotions.

But the issue of expanding housing opportunities in Greenwich is coming to a head after the state legislature pushed the issue to the forefront earlier this year.

To that end, the town has put together a new task force to begin studying the issue as it evaluates its progress in meeting the goals of its 2019 Plan of Conservation and Development. The POCD, which is put together every 10 years, acts as a guiding document for the town’s priorities and projects. The six key areas to be studied include the housing goals, which listed “develop housing opportunities for the future” as its centerpiece.

But even as Greenwich looks at more housing opportunities, it has no plans to allow the population to grow significantly.

“Our population has hovered around 60,000 for the last 50 years, and as noted in the plan, the residents want to generally stay around that number,” Town Director of Planning and Zoning Katie DeLuca said. “Since we are mostly a built-out community, the focus is therefore on infill development and redevelopment. The new residential units that are most needed in the community are those that are affordable.”

The 2019 POCD states, “The health of our community now and into the future is dependent on the diversity of housing stock.”

For DeLuca, who oversaw the development of the POCD, “the best way to ensure we have housing opportunities for the future is through a collaborative approach.”

She called on town residents to work with health and human services, the Board of Education, the Commission on Aging, the Greenwich Association of Realtors, Greenwich Communities (formerly the Housing Authority) and the Conservation Department to come up with plans.

“Not only is it about a getting the right people to the table, but also understanding that the solution will not be a singular response,” DeLuca said.

Focusing on affordable housing

The rise of the Dese-greate CT movement, with its coalition of 66 state organizations, also put a focus on the issue statewide. The coalition endorsed the controversial Senate Bill 1024, which would have set new state mandates on the availability of affordable housing.

But the bill, which ultimately did not move forward, met with strong resistance in Greenwich and other municipalities. Critics said it would have taken away local control on zoning decisions and said local governments were better equipped to handle the issue.

A part of the Desegregate CT coalition, Greenwich resident Nick Abbott said he is aware of the town’s housing goals but said they are lacking in several ways.

“I am familiar with the POCD and think it, along with its 2010 counterpart, says some of the right things about the need for more affordable housing options,” Abbott said. “In other places, it is not so great.”

He pointed that one of the four action items listed in the POCD is “to get the state to change the 8-30g statute to count more of Greenwich’s existing housing toward its 8-30g total.” The 8-30g state statute allows developers of affordable housing to challenge local zoning decisions in court if a municipality has less than 10 percent of their housing deemed affordable.

“That is not a strategy to create more housing opportunities, and if successful would block the one way developers have reliably been able to build anything other than singlefamily homes in Greenwich over the past two decades,” Abbott said.

Also, plans to create a new housing trust fund and require new development with five units or more to set aside 20 percent of those units as affordable would be “woefully insufficient,” he said.

The solution, he said, is more multifamily housing. Abbott suggested adding duplexes, lowering minimum lot sizes and “substantially increasing the allowable density near transit.”

But proposed projects with large numbers of units, some of which were slated to be affordable, have been opposed by neighbors because of size, traffic, safety and aesthetic impact. And that is a mistake, Abbott said.

“By bowing to vocal minorities, P&Z valued their unrepresentative voices over the people who would have lived in those homes; the community members who didn’t show up, who constitute a large majority and were likely agnostic about the proposal; small businesses which would have benefited from increased foot traffic; and young people like me looking for housing in town, both because I could have lived there and because this artificial constriction on housing supply inflates the housing market overall, making it harder for me to find housing in town,” he said.

Finding solutions about the issue

The issue of affordable housing in town has long been one that has driven Sam Romeo. The chair of the Board of Commissioners at Greenwich Communities, Romeo has been working for years with the group’s Executive Director Anthony Jonson on revitalizing the town’s stock of affordable housing.

That includes an ongoing project at Armstrong Court, where 18 new townhouses have been built and 42 existing units are undergoing extensive renovations and upgrades.

Romeo said he and Johnson have put together ambitious plans to provide more affordable housing units in town while raising the standard of living.

He said he has followed the work of the POCD closely, particularly in its housing initiatives. And though Romeo is not part of the evaluation process, he said one way the town can meet the POCD’s goals is through the recently proposed housing trust fund.

Through the trust fund, which has been endorsed by DeLuca and Margarita Alban, chair of the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission, private money can be raised to help fund new affordable housing units. The money would be collected and allocated by an 11-member board to private developers to build more units or renovate existing ones.

“The town should openly and loudly participate in this housing trust fund that Margarita has been tirelessly working on,” Romeo said. “She’s done a fantastic job of explaining it so people understand the significance of it and the need for it. It’s morally the right thing to do as a town. We can improve the quality of life in this town and really make a difference.”

The trust fund would be “a game-changer for affordable housing development in Greenwich,” DeLuca said.

“Developers would have a funding source outside of the highly competitive state and federal arena, that would negate reliance on subsidizing affordable units with more market rate units in order to produce a viable project, which is the premise behind set-aside developments,” she said.

The Representative Town Meeting is considering the trust fund. A special committee is charged with producing a report on the proposal for the full RTM no later than October.

Romeo said Greenwich has been “a leader” among the wealthier towns in the state for “showing how it can and should be done” in regard to affordable housing. Gov. Ned Lamont, a town resident, backed up that viewpoint. At an Armstrong Court plaque dedication in April, he praised the town for “taking the lead” when it comes to developing affordable housing solutions.

Romeo was a critic of the proposed the controversial legislation supported by the DesegregateCT movement, saying it was better to handle the issue of affordable housing on the local level. He said he is “quite pleased” with the direction local officials have taken on the issue.

He said the RTM should approve the trust fund, otherwise it would give “ammunition” to those who say Greenwich is not able to handle the challenge of providing more affordable housing.

“This (trust fund) has reasonable expectations for the town to follow and I know Fred Camillo and the Board of Selectmen is behind this,” Romeo said. “I think it’s time the RTM wakes up and represents the people.”