Government
Land Use Attorney: New Canaan’s ‘Moratorium’ Application Is Incomplete and Non-Approvable
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New Canaan’s widely anticipated application for four years of relief from an affordable housing law—which town officials had said would be submitted to the state April 28—is incomplete and won’t be approved as written, according to a memo from a prominent land use attorney. The town’s voluminous application for a “moratorium” under state law 8-30g is “unapproveable” and “should not be submitted to the Connecticut Department of Housing, for at least two reasons,” according to a 10-page memo filed with the town planner by attorney Timothy Hollister of Hartford-based Hinckley Allen. First, the town has not obtained the “housing unit equivalent” or “HUE” points needed for the moratorium because it hasn’t obtained a permanent Certificate of Occupancy, Hollister said in his memo (available here, minus attachments). The memo was filed with Town Planner Lynn Brooks Avni as part of a required 20-day public comment period, whose deadline was extended from April 28 to 29 “[b]ased on a delay in Town offices in making a copy of the application available,” Hollister said. “Every town that qualifies for a moratorium under the rules and regulations should be granted one, but this application, at this time, is well short,” he said in the memo, obtained by NewCanaanite.com.