Want to live in Danbury? It’ll cost you
Report: Renters are ‘barely making it,’ homeowners face high housing costs, too
DANBURY — The cost of housing in the city is a hardship for a sizable number of residents, a new report states.
This is true of homeowners and renters, although the latter have a greater percentage of residents who are considered “housing cost burdened,” which means more than 30 percent of their income goes toward housing costs.
In Danbury, 55 percent of renters and 37 percent of homeowners with a mortgage meet this threshold, according to a study from a consulting firm presented last week to city officials.
“Affordability of housing will continue to be an issue,” Francisco Gomes, a senior project manager with FHI Studio, told a city committee revising Danbury’s master plan. “It’s an issue for every community, and Danbury is no exception.”
In 2019, the median rental price in Danbury was about $1,470 a month, which is just under Fairfield County’s rental costs of nearly $1,500, but 24 percent higher than Connecticut’s of nearly $1,200. These figures include housing with a varying
number of bedrooms, Gomes said.
“More than half of your renters are barely making it,” Gomes said. “That’s a challenge, and, of course, when we take a look at your monthly rental costs, it’s no wonder that’s the reason.”
This could make it harder for young people to move to Danbury, although demographic trends suggest the city will get younger, he said.
Affording a home
Danbury will do a “deep dive” on these issues as it crafts an affordable housing plan, which a recent state statute requires communities to complete by July 2022, said Sharon Calitro, city planner.
As of March 1, 12 percent of housing in Danbury met the state’s affordability threshold, she said. That’s about double the state’s 2019 average, according to the report.
Danbury faces a “double-edged sword” as it considers housing costs, said Arnold E. Finaldi Jr., chairman of the Danbury Planning Commission.
“On one hand, for any given community, we want prices to go up,” he said. “That’s a good thing. That’s a sign of a vibrant economy. That’s a sign of a desirable place to live, and the alternative to that is plunging housing prices and nobody wants that. That’s not a good sign of a community.”
A strong job market and building more housing will help with that problem, Gomes said.
“It's a supply-and-demand equation,” he said. “If you’re bringing new units online, there’s going to be a little less demand for the older, less expensive units and more available to the market.”
The coronavirus pandemic has increased demand for housing in Danbury because New Yorkers are fleeing to Connecticut and the Hat City.
“Danbury geographically is in the right spot, and it’s driving housing prices up,” Mayor Joe Cavo said. “As we come out of this pandemic, some of that will calm down. It’s still cheaper to live here than it is in Norwalk or Stamford.”
That 37 percent of homeowners with a mortgage who are burdened by housing costs is a “pretty high number,” too, Gomes said.
The median home value in Danbury was just under $300,000 between 2015 to 2019. That’s 9 percent higher than the state’s $275,000 and 30 percent lower than Fairfield County’s about $428,000, according to the report.
Nearly one-fifth of homeowners without a mortgage — 19 percent — are considered housing cost burdened, too. Many are retirees living on a fixed income who must pay taxes, insurance and upkeep of the home, Gomes said.
Homeownership in Danbury is lower than Fairfield County and the state, but at 58 percent is high for a city, Gomes said.
“Ownership is equity,” he said. “Ownership is roots in the community.”
Rental costs
Rental costs may be high because many housing developments are newer, Gomes said.
“Those rental costs have to be high to cover the cost because those developments aren’t paid for yet — someone is still paying them off,” he said. “As housing tends to get older, rental costs come down, and so, this may have to do with your portfolio of housing and when it was built.”
Half of the housing stock in the city is 50 years or younger. Between
1950 to 1989, 54 percent of Danbury’s housing was built.
Construction boomed between
2012 to 2015, peaking that year when
551 housing units were approved with the more than 300-unit Kennedy Flats in 2015 and the development on the Reserve area on the city’s west side, Calitro said.
Approved units dropped in 2016 to 82, then jumped to 155 the following year, then down again to 126 in
2018 and 106 in 2019, according to the report.
“Regardless, this is a lot of activity,” Gomes said. “It’s just compared to prior decades, it’s not quite as much.”
The type of housing also may affect rental costs, Gomes said.
About 42 percent of the city’s housing stock is single-family detached housing. That’s high for a city, but lower than the county and state, where it ranges from around 57 percent to 59 percent, respectively, he said.
Danbury’s non-single-family housing is evenly distributed across housing types and sizes, he said.
Data suggests once people move to Danbury, they stay there.
About 85 percent of Danbury residents were living in the same home as the year before, according to figures from 2015 to 2019. Onequarter of residents moved to their home between 2000 to 2009. Twenty-four percent of residents moved between 2010 to 2014, while 26 percent of residents moved in 2015 or later.
“People are staying in their housing a fairly long time here,” Gomes said.