Can transit-based development lift state?
“When will the state respond to this crisis?”
Sean Ghio, policy director at Partnership for Strong Communities, posed this question at the March 15 public hearing of the Connecticut Legislature’s Planning and Development Committee. Ghio, like so many speakers, was testifying in favor of HB6890, Desegregate Connecticut’s proposed Work Live Ride legislation that encourages the development of transitoriented communities.
Referring to the state’s housing crisis, Ghio, among the last speakers at the nearly 14-hour public hearing, pointed out that more than 52 percent of Connecticut renters are cost burdened, spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, 68 percent of extremely low-income households in Connecticut are severely cost burdened, spending more than 50 percent of their income on housing.
These families experience anxiety-producing housing instability, with the possibility of eviction and homelessness ever-present. They live with serious food insecurity and must make spending choices that often preclude health care.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition finds there’s a shortage of 89,013 rental units affordable to extremely low-income renters in Connecticut. Other estimates are that between 86,000 and 135,000 new housing units are needed to address the need.
Karen DuBois-Walton, president of Elm City Communities (Housing Authority of the City of New Haven), who spoke in support of the proposed legislation, said there’s a desperate shortage of housing and a crisis in housing affordability, with more than 30,000 applicants on the Elm City Communities waiting list. Many are severely cost burdened, live in dilapidated, unsafe housing, are in shelter systems, or live doubled up with others.
While acknowledging the proposed Work Live Ride legislation does not directly address housing affordability, although containing affordability provisions, DuboisWalton said it “helps move the needle” by incentivizing opportunities to create more housing. Her message was that there’s no one solution. Zoning reform can incentivize building, she said. Simply put, the lack of affordability can be seen in the context of supply and demand. Work Live Ride seeks to increase housing supply according to sound planning principles in an environmentally sustainable way.
“We have 100,000 jobs going begging in our state,” Gov. Ned Lamont said in his 2023 State of the State address, citing an aging population, insufficient population growth, and the critical lack of affordable housing. “Every business thinking about moving or expanding repeats, over and over: ‘Even if you had the workforce, there is no place for them to live.’ ”
“Work Live Ride is the product of us listening to communities, leaders, industry, and advocates and coming up with a plan that will help communities that want to grow…” Pete Harrison, director of Desegregate Connecticut, said in an email. “We have conducted over a dozen TOC Walk Audits in transit communities that have done TOD development or are trying to … we also know there’s a wider coalition of support for this and passing it will meaningfully impact a lot of places as well as beginning to change our collective 20th century car-centric mindset.”
In his testimony at the public hearing, Harrison referred to the “staggering economic and racial segregation in Connecticut” attributable to exclusionary zoning. Work Live Ride seeks to create a better, more dynamic, sustainable Connecticut, he said.
The proposed legislation, which encourages concentrated development around train stations, bus lines, and existing infrastructure, offers municipalities incentives to create a transit-oriented district, working in collaboration with the state. Nothing requires a municipality to opt in. Those that opt out simply forgo discretionary infrastructure-related state monies that are prioritized for those that opt in.
During the hearing, the need to clarify certain language in the bill became apparent, most notably the nature of these discretionary funds and the collaborative planning relationship between participating municipalities and the state. Minor tweaking.
Like so many of the young people who spoke in favor of the legislation (college students, recent college graduates, young professionals) Harrison, who grew up in Connecticut, said he loves our state, but doesn’t know if he will ever be able to afford to buy a home here.
Elena Brennan, a student at Wesleyan, said the bill offered hope that she might someday be able to afford a small unit near transit. “That is just kind of the dream,” she said.
Making such dreams a reality is to invest in Connecticut’s sustainable future.