Stop blaming zoning laws for everything

Developer-backed lobbying group, DesegregateCT, recently published an apocryphal 18-page “report” on the environment, scapegoating our zoning laws, it calls a “primary cause of environmental harm.”

What will these so-called pro-home advocates think of next to blame on Connecticut’s duly and locally elected or appointed zoning commissions?

Zoning commissions throughout our 169 towns and cities act as smaller versions of our Environmental Protection Agency and serve as the first line of defense when it comes to protecting and developing our land in the beautiful State of Connecticut. Zoning regulations create order, foster balanced economic and community development, protect property values, safeguard our land, protect public health and safety, and are responsible for implementing the Connecticut Coastal Management Act through the coastal site plan review process. Our zoning commissions approve applications commensurate with the unique aspects of our towns’ infrastructures, design standards, topography, and impact on the neighboring built environment. In addition, different zones within municipalities have been thoughtfully and specifically designed to allow greater density and commercial development around town centers for instance, while requiring larger zoning size in specific areas of watershed, near reservoirs, or areas where soil permeability is an issue.

The individuals who serve as volunteers on Planning and Zoning Commissions work long, arduous hours crafting regulations, adjudicating applications and enforcement. These are your neighbors and friends who have stepped forward to give back to their communities, to whom they in turn are accountable. These volunteers deserve our gratitude and our moral and political support when they bravely stand up to protect neighborhoods from rapacious developers and their social justice vigilantes who lobby incessantly to undermine local control of land use policy.

DesegregateCT, is a program of the Regional Plan Association or RPA. RPA is well-funded ($3 million-plus annually) and it is funded, in good part, by developer interests, for whom, planning and zoning commissions can be an annoying speed bump in their insatiable appetites for projects that are often out of scale or simply incompatible with local land use policy in the interest of greater profitability.

DesgregateCT is on a mission to cripple local zoning commissions with state zoning regulations that are arbitrary and capricious and that allow large scale asof-right development that benefits no one more than their large scale, rentals-only development patrons.

Implementing centralized zoning regulations and cramming “as-of-right” dense development in our coastal communities near our train stations, which will likely face significant sea level rise within the next 25 years, won’t work nor will it be beneficial to our natural resources. Risking further damage to Long Island Sound, natural resources, natural open space, historical resources, in favor of adding high density rentals through onesize fits-all legislation and enriching developers is unacceptable and is something that should not be tolerated by our lawmakers.

DesegregateCT would also like to erase the local public hearing process, which is a key component to the democratic process and the only way the public can voice their dissent or favor on a special permit zoning application. Doing so would be devastating for our communities in Connecticut – and to our environment.

DesegregateCT says it opposes onesize-fits-all policies. But that is exactly what State General Statute 8-30g is, with an arbitrary threshold of 10 percent “affordable” of the total homes in every Connecticut municipality. All but 31 Connecticut communities are at the mercy of builders who threaten the “developer right of appeal” for qualifying projects of any size, anywhere with town water and sewer as long as they provide 30 percent “affordable” units in any of the remaining 138 nonexempt municipalities in Connecticut.

Connecticut derives great strength from its diversity, including the diversity of its 169 towns. Our demography, topography and culture are a rich resource that the proposed and the 2021 passed bill HB 6107 will homogenize and destroy. That bill, which passed on a party line vote, has already villainized the word “character” and removed language to prevent over-densification and “maintaining property values” from existing legislation and their current efforts, along with the Open Communities Alliance lawsuit in Woodbridge, are an attempt to end single family zoning completely. It is the charm and sense of place that continues to draw residents to our unique 169 cities, towns and rural communities in Connecticut. That diversity is a valuable resource that must be preserved and protected from RPA’s billionaire backers who persistently lobby to enfeeble local zoning authority.

Dismantling the rights of community decision making is undemocratic and will have cascading negative consequences to the quality of life in Connecticut and impact Long Island Sound.

Land is finite and unique.

The time is now for our residents to get engaged: get informed on the bills, testify against state overreach and one-size-fitsall policies and defend local municipal zoning rights — before it is too late and before our communities become overcrowded with high density, mostly market value, rentals only development. Stay informed by joining our email list at CT169Strong.org