Affordable Housing: Judge Grants ‘Co-Defendant’ Status to Developer in Moratorium Suit

A state Superior Court Judge ruled Tuesday in favor of a local developer’s motion to intervene as co-defendant in the town’s affordable housing-related lawsuit against the state.

Despite the town’s objections, Judge Ted O’Hanlan granted intervenor status to the companies that own properties in New Canaan where affordable housing developments are planned. Local developer Arnold Karp is principal at the ownership limited liability companies. 

“The court finds that intervenors have demonstrated a valid interest in intervention in this matter,” O’Hanlan wrote in his order, obtained by NewCanaanite.com.

The town in December sued the Connecticut Department of Housing, appealing the state’s decision last fall to deny the town’s application for a “moratorium,” or four years of relief from the state statute that facilitated the affordable housing applications (that suit was dismissed). In June, the town sued again, objecting to a “declaratory ruling” from the state agency that bolstered its earlier denial. 

Attorneys representing Karp in August filed to become a co-defendant in the case, saying, in part, that he will be directly affected if the town is able to overturn the state’s denial of a “moratorium,” which would grant four years of relief from the state affordable housing law known by its statute number, 8-30g. The town could seek to impose a granted moratorium at some future proceeding as to the Section 8-30g application, such as a remand from the court system,” making the developer a “necessary and indispensable party” to the appeal, Karp’s lawyers argued.

The judge agreed, saying this week that the intervenors “have a direct interest in whether defendant Connecticut Department of Housing properly denied plaintiff’s application for a certificate of affordable housing completion.”

“Intervenors have demonstrated that a reversal of defendant’s decision could negatively impact intervenors’ present pending appeals and suspend the right to pursue such applications in the future,” O’Hanlan said in his order.

He added, “Intervenors’ interests will be impaired without their involvement because plaintiff Town of New Canaan’s interests in a moratorium are adverse to intervenors’ interests against same and, as previously found, their proposed affordable housing developments could be adversely affected in a myriad of procedural context by the reversal of the decision at issue.”

Under the state law known by its statute number, 8-30g, in towns where less than 10% of all housing stock qualifies as affordable (New Canaan is at 2.94%), developers who propose projects where a certain number of units are set aside to rent at affordable rates may appeal to the state after a local P&Z Commission denies their applications. New Canaan since its last moratorium lapsed in July 2021 has received three such applications, at Weed and Elm Streets (120 units), Main Street (20 units) and Hill Street (93 units). P&Z denied all of them. Those applications are now under appeal in state Superior Court. 

Meanwhile, town officials have stumbled in the appointment of New Canaan’s Affordable Housing Committee, a public body that’s expected to make recommendations around affordable housing development as well as the next moratorium.

The Board of Selectmen had planned to appoint Committee members earlier this month but so far has been unable to do so.

Town Council Chair Steve Karl told the finance board that four members of the nine-person Committee who will serve as liaisons to other boards and commissions—namely, Krista Neilson from the Planning & Zoning Commission, Hilary Ormond from Town Council, Mike Sweeney from the Housing Authority and Maria Weingarten from the Board of Finance—are already in place and it’s “just a matter of figuring out those last five positions.”

On Tuesday night, the Board of Finance voted unanimously in favor of Weingarten joining the Committee as the finance board’s designee.

Board of Finance member Victor Alvarez, a Democrat, said prior to the vote that political partisanship, which has followed Weingarten in the past, also has been seen in New Canaan’s affordable housing debate.

When he ran for state office last year, Alvarez said, he saw lawn signs appear two days before the election that read ‘Want to Save Weed Street? Vote Republican.’

“My question is, in terms of objectivity, are you going to be able to look at the perspectives of all the stakeholders involved around affordable housing?” Alvarez said, addressing Weingarten, a Republican. “Because it is one of the key issues in the community.”

Weingarten said she doesn’t see affordable housing as a party issue and that she’s involved with a statewide group that’s looking for good solutions. She added that she already is in contact with similarly informed and involved people in towns such as Darien and Greenwich.

When Alvarez began to ask again about the signs from last year, Lavieri, a Republican—interjected, “Victor, I don’t think Maria put the sign up” and told him the agenda item was not “an opportunity to interrogate.” Lavieri said it was fair to ask the question and that Weingarten had provided a good answer.

After Alvarez noted that Weingarten remains on the Republican Town Committee, a volunteer group that works on behalf of the GOP for elections, Lavieri told Alvarez that he didn’t mean to interrupt his question but to “be careful about going too far with that” and that the fact that someone put a sign is “not Maria’s fault.”

Lavieri said later in the meeting, “Victor, thanks for the question. I think it’s a fair question.”

Board member Amy Murphy Carroll noted that no one else on the appointed body had raised their hand to serve on the Affordable Housing Committee. Lavieri said that Weingarten had volunteered and had not been “volun-told.”