Time to act locally, Litchfield
There are many in our county who talk a good game about fixing inequity — just don’t mess with zoning rules or lot sizes
Throughout Northwest Connecticut there are signs expressing empathy with messages such as “Black Lives Matter” and “Hate Has No Home Here.” During the last election, most towns in our region voted for the candidate who campaigned on doing something about our society’s deep inequalities and treating the less fortunate with empathy and compassion. My town of Kent went for Joe Biden by a margin of 38%. The margin in a nearby town was 60%. Unfortunately, it seems empathy doesn’t extend to our own backyards.
Even before the pandemic, we had an affordable housing crisis in our region. One of the things my wife and I love about Kent is that it has done a better job than many in the area in providing affordable housing and has diverse housing options such as multifamily housing, which is rare for such a small town.
However, it is still about 100 units short of its affordable housing obligations set by the state’s affordable housing statute. U.S. Census data from 2015-2019 shows that nearly half of Kent households were cost-burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on housing.
The pandemic has made a bad situation worse. According to Zillow, home values have shot up about 30% in Kent.
To put that in perspective, in March 2019 the salary of a sixthyear teacher with a master’s degree at Kent Center School could support the mortgage payments for the average home in Kent. Today, that same teacher would need to wait until their 11th year to afford the average home in Kent.
Kent is fortunate to have 13 new homes coming to a parcel near the village center, as that will be 13 fewer buyers bidding up the cost of existing homes in the area. The parcel is in the “Village Residential” zoning district,and will be on town sewer and water.
It is within easy walking distance of the grocery store, restaurants, and other amenities. Zoning regulations would actually allow up to 19 homes to be built on the parcel, but the developers wanted to have only 13 homes, and on smaller lots than what was allowed for under Kent’s zoning regulations.
The Planning & Zoning commission allowed the developer’s representative to create a new set of regulations to let them do what they wanted, with only minor feedback
from the commission. The result is an attractive subdivision that looks like it came off a Pinterest page, with about 40% of the parcel set aside as open space.
The parcel’s physical site characteristics, and the town’s own prior zoning regulations for it, would clearly allow a few more homes. At the Planning and Zoning commission meeting in August, the local affordable housing group came forward with a very modest proposal for the commission — would it allow just two more homes on the parcel for families with moderate incomes?
The chair posed the question to the commission. In response, not a single commissioner expressed support. There was no discussion of the parcel’s physical site characteristics, the town’s and region’s housing need or any other objective factor they are supposed to consider.
With their silence, the commissioners quietly eliminated the possibility of two homes for families shut out of the area’s housing market. The only response was from one commissioner, who complained there were already too many houses without citing any specifics.
While more and more families have been shut out of the housing
market during the pandemic, the net worth of anyone who owns a home in town has skyrocketed. For many, this translates to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
When we purchased our home in 2017, which was built as a parsonage and had housed hardscrabble farmers until the 1970s, it would still be within reach of a teacher. Today, it would be completely unaffordable for a teacher or almost anyone else doing essential work in our community.
Residents looking to sell their home don’t need to worry, though. There are plenty of New Yorkers making hundreds of thousands of dollars or more eager to buy. Limiting supply is very profitable for current residents.
It has long been acceptable for local zoning commissions to look out solely for the interest of current residents, who generally want to limit change and increase property values, with little regard for those seeking housing. The Kent Zoning Regulations, in the Authority and Purposes section, cherry-picks the provisions of the state’s zoning enabling act that give the commission the authority to block housing — but conspicuously doesn’t include provisions that would
compel it to allow it.
The motivation might not be to exclude, but the result certainly is. Of course what is happening in Kent is what has happened in town after town, state after state, decade after decade, producing our closely interlinked housing and inequality crises.
The misuse of zoning at the expense of those seeking housing has become a political issue at the state and national level. During the presidential election, Joe Biden and most Democratic candidates pledged to do something about exclusionary zoning. Donald Trump pledged to defend it.
In Connecticut and many other states, efforts are being made to limit the ability of zoning commissions to block housing without specific, objective and legitimate reasons for doing so. Connecticut just passed legislation that eliminated “character” as a reason to block housing, which was referenced in the Kent zoning regulations dozens of times and is frequently used by zoning commissioners.
Those of us who care about deepening inequality have a great deal of power to act locally to address inequality in our own communities. Housing is a basic human need, and the largest expense for most families.
In contrast to so many factors contributing to inequality, housing and its cost are controlled to a great degree at the local level, usually by a handful of zoning commissioners. Those of us who are comfortably housed can start speaking up at zoning commission meetings for those who aren’t and work to change zoning for the benefit for those seeking housing.
Are towns like Kent going to do the right thing on their own and show empathy through action for those seeking housing, especially those less fortunate? Or will they wait to be compelled to do the right thing like so many towns, regions and states were during the civil rights era, another time when opponents of change spoke passionately about maintaining character, and the importance of local control?
I like to think towns like Kent will choose to do the right thing with its local control of zoning, and act locally to address our housing and inequality crises.