Affordable Housing Committee

Affordable Housing Committee Elects Officers, Hears from Town Officials at First Meeting

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A newly appointed committee charged with identifying properties in New Canaan where affordable housing units could be built, among other responsibilities, on Monday voted to elect a seasoned and widely respected municipal volunteer as its chair. At its first meeting, members of the Affordable Housing Committee voted 9-0 to elect former Planning & Zoning Commission chair John Goodwin to lead the group. 

In nominating him, Committee member Krista Neilson said that Goodwin’s time on P&Z “gives him a lot of insight into the work that we’re going to be doing here.”

“He sat in on approving Canaan Parish and Millport, I’m sure he probably dodged some 8-30g applications that didn’t come to us,” Neilson said during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. She continued: “So he’s seen the whole gamut, at least, of how it comes to the town. And also, I think he has great experience being the chair of the Planning & Zoning Commission, which—those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of attending our meetings, can be quite long, quite contentious. I feel if you can chair that, you can chair most anything.

Amy Murphy Carroll

ARPA: Selectmen Vote to Transfer Remaining $750,000 to Town’s General Fund

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The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday voted unanimously to transfer all remaining funds from the American Rescue Plan Act or “ARPA” to New Canaan’s General Fund. First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll during their regular meeting voted 3-0 to return the $747,634 to the fund so that the town can spend however it wants, rather than along ARPA-specific guidelines. Murphy Carroll, who served on a joint Board of Finance and Town Council subcommittee that made recommendations about ARPA allocations, said the federal dollars can be used to reimburse communities that lost revenue due to the pandemic. “We did lose approximately $3 million in revenue, and I was always a fan personally of pulling it in, because once you pull it into the town, you can use it for whatever purpose,” she said during the meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference “If you allocate it directly this way, you have to really align with ARPA requirements. So I think it makes all the sense in the world for us to pull this in and then just allocate it out of our General Fund.

Government

Board of Selectmen Approves $176.8 Million Budget; Board of Finance Up Next

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The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday approved a spending plan of about $176.8 million for next fiscal year. The figure represents a 6.09% over the current budget. First Selectman Dionna Carlson said in a press release that the fiscal year 2025 budget, which now moves to the Board of Finance for the appointed body’s review, “reflects a commitment to hold the line on spending while maintaining services to town residents and continually striving for  improvements and efficiencies.”

“Continued pressure from inflation, increased expenses for information technology, early voting election expenses, additional School Resource Officers, additional staffing in the school district along with a large increase in the school health insurance reserve are the primary drivers of the proposed budget increase,” she said in a statement. “This is a challenging budget year, and as we gain more insight into the current year expenses during the coming  months, I remain optimistic that we will find additional opportunities to reduce the FY 2024‐ 2025 budget before it becomes final in April.”

As it stands, the budget includes a Board of Education spending plan of $109.8 million and town department operations expenses of $33.8 million, as well as debt service of $18.45 million and tax-supported capital projects of $1.92 million, according to the release. During Tuesday’s meeting, the selectmen made several reductions to proposed departmental budgets, including to the Departments of Emergency Management and Human Services.

Amy Murphy Carroll

FY25 Budget: Carlson Flags Town Stipends for Nonprofits

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The town should allow grant-making agencies that raise private dollars to fund nonprofit organizations that serve residents, rather than putting that cost on local taxpayers, New Canaan’s highest elected official said last week. Other Fairfield County towns do not make the smaller grants that New Canaan has given to agencies such as the Child Guidance Center and, more recently, Family Centers, according to First Selectman Dionna Carlson. New Canaan needs to “look at where are we getting our bang for buck as a municipality, and what are we using that we need to fund,” Carlson said during a Jan. 23 Board of Selectmen meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. 

Though the community decided to enter into a partnership with the New Canaan Community Foundation and Silver Hill Hospital to fund the successful Urgent Assessment Program, “I’m not quite sure what we are doing with all of these small donations to these other agencies,” she added. “My only argument is that if it truly is a really beneficial nonprofit that many people value, they will write checks for it,” Carlson said.

Dan Radman

Affordable Housing: State Denies Town’s Claims in Response to ‘Declaratory Ruling’ Lawsuit

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The state Department of Housing last week filed its formal answer to a lawsuit from the town of New Canaan, denying claims that it “aggrieved” the municipality last year when it issued a “declaratory ruling” after denying an application for relief from a widely discussed affordable housing law. The town claimed in a complaint filed last summer that the DOH misinterpreted the law known by its statute number, 8-30g, when the agency bolstered its reasoning for an earlier denial of the town’s application for a four-year “moratorium.”

Specifically, the town argued, the state erred in failing to credit New Canaan for “excess” affordable housing units that had been completed prior to the issuance of the town’s last moratorium (in 2017). 

“In other words, if a municipality constructs a substantial number of affordable housing units, well in excess of the number of units that would be required for a moratorium under § 8-30g, and then the municipality applies for and receives a moratorium, none of the ‘excess’ or ‘surplus’ newly constructed affordable housing can ever be counted towards a later moratorium,” Nick Bamonte, a lawyer with the town attorney’s firm, said in the complaint. 

In the Jan. 19 answer, Assistant Attorney General Vianca T. Malick denied the town’s claims that the DOH’s declaratory ruling prejudiced the rights of New Canaan, violated state law, abused its power or effectively discouraged the construction of affordable housing units, as the complaint had asserted. 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, above Kimberly Place), Main Street (20 units) and Hill Street (93 units).