You might have heard about the “Incentive Housing Zone” (IHZ) program. Through this program, the State provides technical assistance for towns’ efforts to rezone small areas in ways that increase density. We do not believe that IHZs have worked well in Connecticut, and we do not believe they are a good alternative to our data-driven platform. Here’s why:

IHZs are extremely expensive.

According to the last Incentive Housing Zone report, the State of Connecticut has spent nearly $2 million supporting towns’ creation of IHZs. The state has spent $220,000 alone on “Zone Adoption Grants.” This translates into nearly $6,000 per acre of land actually rezoned. Instead of doing piecemeal rezoning in towns, the State should put the funding toward a form-based model code for the entire state, with support to towns to adopt and adapt it.

The IHZ program has not significantly changed zoning.

The state claims that 351 acres of incentive housing zones have been created. We note that a couple of the IHZs the State said were created can’t be found on online town zoning maps, or in the GIS layers we obtained from towns and used to create the Zoning Atlas.

The IHZ program has actually not produced much housing.

The State reports that as of January 2020, only 28 units of housing had been created or were under permit. If that’s correct, it means the State has spent nearly $70,000 per housing unit.

In addition, the program has stalled, and no municipalities are currently seeking letters of eligibility.