The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Anti-housing groups are holding state back
An opinion letter about housing written by one of the founders of an anti-8-30g organization called CT169Strong recently appeared in this publication. The gist of this letter was to decry recent initiatives in the state to create more affordable housing. The opening point was that by focusing on local zoning regulations as one of the reasons for the lack of significant movement toward creating more affordable housing is tantamount to “scapegoating.”
What this ignores is the fact that suburbs have had a long history of exclusionary zoning in this state, as well as regionally and nationally. In fact, zoning was created for the very purpose of racial and ethnic exclusion. Along the way, of course, zoning rationales were developed and used to support the reason for its inception and continued practice.
Pointing this fact out may be uncomfortable for some, but highlighting the need for more affordable housing, and housing in general, is a laudable goal, and building more of it deserves greater acceptance.
Those who are against existing state housing laws claim they are in favor of more housing, but one common claim is that “it just has to be built in the right place,” which translates to somewhere else, not near them. When queried where affordable housing ought to be built the typical answer is “Somewhere … just not there, where it’s proposed.”
Developing more affordable housing could be a whole lot easier and far less expensive if towns would simply work with and allow private developers the opportunity to do so, but current restrictive zoning regulations make that very difficult. Overregulation for decades, even generations, has severely restricted the housing supply.
Anyone who understands the principle of supply and demand easily grasps the inevitable result that the artificial restriction of the housing supply over many years has created – higher housing costs. And that in turn has been the major contributing factor to the housing crisis this state and nation currently faces, a crisis that is only worsening and appears likely to continue.
The letter also criticizes the fact that more state funding for affordable housing goes to a few larger towns and cities. While this is true more state funding currently goes to them for the simple reason that those are the few places that don’t always try to block more development – it’s very often welcomed in those places. If other towns in the state were more willing to allow more much-needed housing development of all kinds, there would be more funding available to them. Currently, many towns don’t ask the state for funding because they don’t want housing built near them.
The letter also contends that since New Canaan started an affordable housing fund decades ago that that is proof that the town is not “anti-affordable,” and that assertions that it is does not align with the facts. However, what does align with the facts is that New Canaan has built very little of this kind of housing in the ensuing decades and has not allowed private developers to do so, either. The current affordable housing stock in New Canaan stands at under 3 percent, yet roughly 30 percent of New Canaan households are classified as “housing burdened,” even in this affluent town.
The letter also articulates how the town was scrambling to finish the recently completed Canaan Parish affordable housing development, and how COVID-related delays slowed the town from obtaining an 8-30g moratorium. Yet the author appears oblivious that calls for and efforts to attain “relief” from 8-30g belies claims that New Canaan is not “anti-affordable.” It indicates that the goal of affordable housing in New Canaan is to get more moratoriums so that more housing cannot be built (build only the minimal amount to get to the next moratorium – and in less desirable spots such as next to the town landfill like where Canaan Parish was built). The fact is that Canaan Parish would never have been built if the 8-30g law did not exist.
Then there is a common claim that 8-30g is a legal “loophole” or an “end-around” to bypass local zoning regulations, but the fact is that 8-30g is a state law, put in place for very good reasons, one being because of local resistance to housing.
Here’s another common concept put forth by anti-housing folks – that those developers who seek to build more housing are “predatory” and their developments only benefit the builder. Those who use this imply, and even state overtly, that it’s all “just for profit.” Yet those same people have no problem supporting developments they deem worthy (single-family homes, country clubs, commercial real estate, etc.) even though those are all for profit.
They may even be involved in them personally – their chosen professions most certainly are. Those folks who actually live in the housing, both market rate and affordable units, built by developers actually benefit, too, by having a place to live, yet this fact gets conveniently ignored in this selective narrative.
Historically, many municipalities have only moved on this subject when they’ve been forced to do so with state housing laws. Calls for housing advocates to partner directly with municipalities often rings hollow given the long history of towns rejecting those very efforts at collaboration.
8-30g laws have in fact worked and continue to work. It is a top-down strategy, to be sure, but this has been the only approach to get any significant movement on building more affordable housing, and its existence has resulted in many thousands of actual living units being built over the last few decades.
Opponents want local “control,” and by that they mean they don’t want housing built near them. Local “control” means continued exclusionary zoning practices, and their solution is to gut the state laws. While State housing laws could be modified and tailored, they are actually working and they need to stay in place.