Welcoming new neighbors can save Greenwich’s character
We all do it. It’s human nature. We’re hardwired to romanticize the past, wanting things to be the way they were in what we envisioned was a simpler, easier time. But memory is selective, and our understanding of those before times is often warped by sentiment and over-simplified rose-colored glasses. My father once told me how the name of the TV show “Happy Days” irked him because growing up in 1950s America wasn’t a particularly happy time for lots of people. Segregation, intolerance, communist witch hunts, and of course the dread of nuclear annihilation were just a few of the things our collective memory avoids when we think boy, wasn’t America great back then?
Let’s stay in the mid-20th however, as we reimagine the Greenwich housing market, as seen through the selective memories of long-time residents. For many, Greenwich has always been a town defined by its local homeownership; what gives the town its character, they say. Whether a Romanesque estate on endless acreage or a modest Colonial tightly packed with its neighbors, there was a cycle to residency. Grown children either went to college, with many returning to live in their hometown and buying a “starter home” in some western neighborhood before taking over their more central or eastern childhood home. Or, they never left and either stayed in the family home, later maybe renting something modest before moving on up. A perpetual cycle story of Greenwichites, forming some closed housing loop, but is it completely accurate? Of course not, it’s a soothing myth that helps townies look sideways at anyone who didn’t live here when The Avenue was two-way, and the Clam
Proposals like one recently made by Greenwich Communities, our local housing authority, to build 48 workforce housing units over a Strickland Road parking area in Cos Cob should be seen as a good thing and not met with resistance.
Box was Greenwich’s Arnold’s Drive-In.
Either way, times change. And for a multitude of reasons there’s now just not enough reasonable, affordable housing available for the next generation kids who want to move back, older generation adults looking to retire in place, people who work here and want to live here, not to mention the constant influx of newbies regularly emigrating to Greenwich.
Which is why proposals like one recently made by Greenwich Communities, our local housing authority, to build 48 workforce housing units over a Strickland Road parking area in Cos Cob should be seen as a good thing and not met with resistance. Because what gets lost in all the hand-wringing over meeting some statemandated target number of affordable housing units, is that every time we increase our affordable housing stock we make our community better. Better because teachers who educate our children can now live alongside those young families. Better because older generations of Greenwichites can remain in town with better options for where to live comfortably. Better because town employees and civil servants, who get their paychecks from our taxes, can spend those paychecks at local businesses. And overall, adding and retaining more residents will always make for a more robust local economy, and make it easier for local businesses to thrive.
Look, the days of nickel beers and $2 lunches are over. Things cost more, people’s habits change and every local Amazon delivery is a nail in the coffin of a local business not making a sale. No rosecolored, revisionist memory
is going to bring back our mythical closed-loop of Greenwich housing, but what we can change is the quantity and quality of our new housing stock, paving the way for people with a vested interest in seeing Greenwich grow and succeed, to establish themselves here.
And that’s the point Greenwich Connections wants to make. That adding to the housing stock in an attractive and affordable manner, appealing to people prepared to establish a deeper connection with the town is a good thing. In fact, increasing the number of new neighbors now vested in Greenwich’s success is what actually helps preserve the town’s character.
We need projects like Strickland Road. Projects that will make a difference. Housing that may not look like Greenwich housing did in our romanticized past, but that meets the needs of the future. And it’s not about counting workforce housing units to get past some mandated number. It’s about doing right for people who want to live and work, or live and retire in their hometown.