Affordable Housing Committee

Op-Ed: Affordable Housing Committee Moving Ahead On Three Tracks

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[John Goodwin is chair of the New Canaan Affordable Housing Committee.]
Last year the New Canaan Town Council passed an ordinance establishing an Affordable Housing Committee. The Committee’s mission is to work with the New Canaan Housing Authority and other Town bodies to increase the number of affordable housing units in New Canaan, with a goal of achieving local control of housing decisions via successive moratoriums under Connecticut’s 8-30g statute. Connecticut Statute 8-30g is complex, as is the topic of affordable housing. Under 8-30g a housing unit is deemed ‘affordable’ if the residents make less than 80% of median income. In essence, the statute enables developers who seek to build housing projects with at least 30% of the units deed-restricted as affordable to avoid the zoning regulations maintained by the Town’s Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z). The exception is if P&Z can demonstrate clear risks to health, safety and welfare that outweigh the benefits of additional affordable housing. In various cases the state’s courts have shown that to be a high bar. Consequently most 8-30g projects get upheld in court and result in buildings that are incongruent with the town’s Plan of Conservation and Development and the zoning regulations that are continuously reviewed and improved to implement the Community’s vision. Towns can maintain control of new residential development either by having 10% of the town’s housing stock deemed affordable, or by building enough new affordable units to achieve four-year moratoriums. On the former, New Canaan is at 3.93%, and almost all agree that getting to 10% is unrealistic. Therefore, the New Canaan Town Council determined that achieving successive moratoriums is a priority.