Letter to Connecticut Congressional Representatives
June 29, 2022
Offices of The Honorable Richard Blumenthal, The Honorable Christopher Murphy, The Honorable Rosa DeLauro, The Honorable John Larson, The Honorable Joe Courtney, The Honorable James Himes, and The Honorable Jahana Hayes
Dear Honorable Senators and Representatives of Connecticut:
On behalf of the Desegregate Connecticut coalition, I am writing to applaud the Biden Administration’s proposed policy actions to overcome local exclusionary zoning laws and encourage more home creation. DesegregateCT is a pro-homes coalition of 80 neighborhood groups and nonprofits advocating for more equitable, affordable, and environmentally-sustainable land use policies in Connecticut and strongly urges you to vocally support these pro-homes measures and to expand federal leadership on home creation in Congress.
Many homeowners and homerenters in Connecticut are struggling with severe and rising housing costs. Currently, more than 3 out of 10 households in Connecticut are considered “housing cost-burdened,” meaning they pay 30% or more of their monthly income towards housing costs - including a staggering 66% of extremely low income homerenter households that pay over half. These households, which are disproportionately made up of black and brown families, are more likely to sacrifice other necessities like food and healthcare to pay the rent or mortgage, and to experience destabilizing events like evictions, foreclosures, and homelessness. Additionally, many other residents - young people beginning their careers, families raising children, seniors looking to downsize - are struggling to find a home and are being forced to leave the state to find more affordable communities elsewhere. This explains why Connecticut’s population has only grown by .9% since the last census and continues to rapidly age. More recently, the pandemic and rising inflation have further destabilized the housing market in Connecticut, which will likely result in more households facing even greater burdens over the next few years.
Part of this problem stems from the simple fact that Connecticut does not allow enough homes to be built. In 2020, Connecticut ranked 48th out of 50 states in new building permits per capita. Since our coalition’s founding two years ago, DesegregateCT has leveraged original research, including a first-of-its-kind statewide Zoning Atlas, to demonstrate how much this crisis is driven by restrictive and exclusionary local anti-homes zoning laws in place across the majority of municipalities in Connecticut. Citing just one example, Connecticut towns and cities collectively allow single-unit houses as of right on 91% of their residential land, while allowing multifamily homes like townhouses, duplexes, and apartment buildings by right on just 2%. This “one size fits all” approach to land use explains why Connecticut produces so few homes overall and lacks a diversity of housing options, particularly in high opportunity areas around public transit.
What is allowed in this “one size fits all” approach is almost universally big single-unit housing on large lots far from jobs, schools, and transit. This forces the residents who can afford those homes to drive everywhere, which increases pollution, traffic, and carbon emissions for everyone. This pattern also forces towns and cities to pay more for expanding, maintaining, or upgrading public infrastructure like roads, water lines, and sewers. This statewide land use regime has dire consequences for job and wealth creation, social and racial equality, and environmental sustainability.
To break out of this failed status quo and to put Connecticut on the path to greater social, economic, and environmental progress, we need to adopt an “all of the above” approach to land use and home creation reforms that brings together local, regional, state, and federal action.
It is critical to understand that local communities cannot make these improvements without state and federal support. Recently, every municipality in the state was required to create an Affordable Housing Plan to outline both the need for housing and the concrete actions necessary to meet that need. Virtually every municipal plan adopted to date acknowledges the urgent need for more housing of all kinds. In some cases, towns and cities have made good faith efforts to outline smart land use and housing actions to increase affordable housing production. But many others have not, and do not yet have the necessary organized local support to embrace this positive vision, despite the overwhelming need for more housing. In either case, local action runs into concerns about the impact additional home construction will have on public infrastructure like roads, sewers, and even schools. Expecting current homeowners and local businesses to foot this bill through higher property taxes is politically and economically unviable and will only perpetuate inaction.
This is where the Biden administration’s proposals become so important to our work. The Administration’s May 2022 statement outlines legislative and administrative actions that will help close America’s housing supply shortfall across a number of policy areas in five years. We wish to highlight two particularly relevant objectives that we hope you will support publicly.
First, rewarding jurisdictions that reform land use policies to reflect pro-homes priorities such as transit-oriented communities, main street revitalization, and gentle density with grants for supporting infrastructure investments.
Second, deploying new financing mechanisms to build and preserve more homes where financing gaps currently exist, including for Accessory Dwelling Units, which we helped make legal as of right across the state during last year’s state legislative session.
With these modest interventions, we believe that the federal government can tip the scale towards a statewide embrace of pro-homes zoning that will elevate statewide and regional planning along with smart local reforms. Given the outsized role the federal government played in segregating our state and country through housing financing and highway infrastructure policies throughout much of the 20th century, it has an obligation to acknowledge its role in our current housing crisis and support the types of solutions that can begin to heal these multi-generational scars and prepare us for the impact of climate change.
We ask that you declare yourself “pro-homes” and come out in support of these executive measures. We also request that you urge your elected colleagues at the state and local level to make the necessary pro-homes reforms that will trigger this federal support. With your collective voices championing the “all of the above” approach to land use reform and home creation, you have the ability to provide critical federal support for current and future homeowners and homerenters to live securely in our state. Together, Connecticut will emerge as a stronger, fairer, and more sustainable place to live.
Sincerely,
Pete Harrison
Director, DesegregateCT