New Haven makes its case for affordable housing throughout CT
HARTFORD — Mayor Justin Elicker, in offering an example of zoning that precludes affordable housing, stayed close to home.
He showed a map of New Canaan, where he grew up and where his parents still live. A majority of its housing is not permitted on less than two acres and a large portion requires a minimum of four acres.
In contrast, in New Haven all of its neighborhoods allow affordable multi-family developments.
Elicker testified before the Housing Committee on the need for other communities to help expand the affordable housing stock in the state, which remains concentrated in the urban centers.
“New Haveners struggle with skyrocketing housing prices and wages that can’t keep up. The affordable housing that is available is, at times, inadequately maintained, and concentrated in small, segregated neighborhoods,” Elicker said.
He told the committee that everyone should do their part to address the need, referring to it as the “racial and social justice issue of our time. A community like New Haven bears the undue burden of providing housing when many suburban communities, including the town I grew up in, should be doing much more,” he said.
Elicker, who was joined by a half dozen other city officials, proposed creating a regional housing trust fund to stimulate development of affordable housing projects in the larger geographic region. As towns continue to resist building affordable housing, the mayor said this would help bridge the gap and offer an incentive to expand their affordable housing stock.
In the long term, he said the state should have pursue a comprehensive housing policy that the Right to Housing legislation would achieve.
Other city officials pressed hard Thursday for a new state direction to help affordable housing opportunities, as well as funds to stabilize the existing housing stock.
One of the specific bills New Haven supported describes tax incentives for developers to build workforce housing in Enterprise Zones. Another backs a Department of Correction risk assessment of persons coming out of prison and the liklihood that they will become homeless. It opposed a bill that would require more than two months of rent put into escrow for tenants as further limiting options for low-income families.
More than 40 percent of Connecticut families are considered rent burdened, spending in excess of 30 percent of their income on housing costs, Karen DuBois-Walton, president of New Haven’s Housing Authority, told the committee.
In the city itself, mainly through the Housing Authority, 30 percent of its housing stock is considered affordable, but still, 41 percent of New Haven households continue to remain rent burdened with 12,000 families on the authority’s waiting list.
Compounding the issue is the fact that only three of the 15 towns in the South Central Region Council of Governments (New Haven, Meriden and West Haven) provide more than the 10 percent state threshold for affordable housing units.
DuBois-Walton said those towns that do not meet the threshold are also “defined as areas of ‘high’ or ‘very high’ opportunity meaning that they offer access to good employment opportunities, effective public education systems and high-quality neighborhood standards.”
If the remaining 12 towns got to the 10 percent level, it would add 7,500 units of affordable apartments, she said.
DuBois-Walton told the lawmakers that a regional solution is needed on several grounds, including the fact that 4,000 people on the authority’s waiting list are from towns outside New Haven.
“This failure also importantly contributes to continuing discriminatory housing patterns in our state. Connecticut has been designed and remains one of the most segregated places in this country. Connecticut housing policy established this and legislative and executive actions will either continue or reverse these discriminatory trends. Strong and decisive action is required to create housing opportunity for all,” DuBois-Walton testified.
She also wants to see other communities invest in developments by making housing available to families at all levels of affordability and not just 50 percent to 60 percent of the median income. .
Aicha Woods, executive director of City Plan in New Haven, told the lawmakers that without the preservation of existing housing stock, as well as a significant boost in new homes, neighborhoods are “feeling the pressure of rising rents and property taxes. As the gravitational pull of urban centers increases, we simply need more good quality and affordable work force housing that is adjacent to transit and in mixed-use neighborhoods,” Woods said.
In addition to putting housing near trains and bus services, Woods talked about the need to co-locate housing and jobs.
In New Haven, hundreds of new apartments are coming online, but those built with some affordable apartments tapped into state funding that has now dried up. There are jobs, however, tied to expanding biotech research and startups in general.
The city’s planner said low-density, car-dependent patterns of development are not sustainable for Connecticut, while an update in the state’s “exclusionary 20th century zoning laws” are in order.
The city is studying adopting Inclusionary Zoning in New Haven which would offer density bonuses, eliminate parking minimums, allow accessory dwelling units, and reconsider single-family zoning by creating form-based zoning that allows for higher density and mixed uses.
New Haven Alder Evette Hamilton, in testimony she submitted, told the lawmakers that affordable housing is a top priority for her constituents.
“While they suffer in substandard, temporary and dangerous living conditions, their lives are unstable and in turmoil, Without more affordable housing options and improved housing stock, these residents face an uphill battle to gain solid footing at school, at work and in the community,” Hamilton wrote.
mary.oleary@hearstmediact.com; 203-641-2577
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