Housing plan must reach beyond cities

It's fitting that Gov. Ned Lamont's news conference highlighting his budget's housing proposals on Thursday was held in Bridgeport. The governor has emphasized the role of cities in his housing plans, repeatedly pointing out that there's plenty of room to grow in our urban centers to help meet our increasingly dire housing crunch.

“People want to move to Hartford. People want to move to Bridgeport. People want to move to the state of Connecticut, and we want to make sure that gets done,” Lamont said.

He's right, and it's not just about what people want. Businesses need more people to help fill some of the thousands of open positions in Connecticut, and one of the biggest hindrances is a lack of affordable places to live. Expanded state subsidies will help close those gaps between what we have and what we need, in addition to giving a needed boost to our cities' economies.

But we shouldn't pretend as if it's enough. The housing shortage extends to all corners of the state, from city to suburb to rural areas. At the same time, there are plentiful projects that have been proposed in all parts of the state to help fill those needs. Multifamily developments are in demand, and financing is not what's stopping them from being built.

Local control is stopping them. Zoning is stopping them. Our “steady habits” are keeping the state in crisis because we refuse to build what we need to sustain our economy.

Lamont, regrettably, has not proposed anything to take on these challenges.

At the same time, his plans are nearly all carrot and no stick. Subsidies are nice, and incentives can be welcome, but to make something happen, there needs to be enforcement. Minus mandates, there's every reason to think very little will happen, even in the cities that have been targeted for growth.

Suburbs cannot sit this one out. Too often, the story of our riches towns is one of opportunity hoarding, where high property values lead to the best services, the highest-performing schools and amenities other towns cannot hope to match. We see this play out again and again.

One example is before the General Assembly in the form of beach fees. Some rich towns charge exorbitant amounts for out-oftowners to visit their shoreline, which after all, belongs to everyone. Greenwich charges nonresidents up to $50 a day, Westport asks $775 for a nonresident seasonal parking pass, etc.

These towns say it's all about upkeep, which may be partially true, but it's also about keeping people out. It's a situation that shouldn't be allowed to stand, especially as those towns make it so hard for more people to move in and pay resident rates for beach fees by denying proposed developments and maintaining strict zoning codes. Something has to give. Development in cities like Bridgeport and Hartford is welcome, as are the governor's plans to spark that growth. But the need goes far beyond those places. Without some combination of statewide zoning reform or mandates to build, the entire burden of solving this crisis will fall to a few cities.

We've burdened those cities enough already.