This ‘scorecard’ is a misguided, subjective, and somewhat misleading attempt by housing development advocates to grade municipalities on their affordable housing plans using self-created subjective criteria which are not listed in the statute.
In 2017, our state legislature established the affordable housing planning process described set forth in 8-30j in order to enable towns to do self-assessments and create realistic plans given the unique situations in each town and city. Any attempt to subjectively measure “leadership” or other similar factors is not meaningful. If a truly objective grading system for Affordable Housing plans were possible, the legislature would have likely included that in the legislation.
The proponents of the ‘scorecard’ also call for the need for ‘deeply affordable housing’ in Fairfield County, completely ignoring the fact that a major reason this area is so expensive is due to market factors by being so close to the economic engine of New York City. As we have said before, people make economic decisions every day to trade off commute for homes containing the attributes they desire.
In its 30+ years of existence, the 8-30g law has not created much deeply affordable housing and does not create generational wealth. It only creates generational wealth for 8-30g developers who seek to maximize profit by leveraging high market rental revenues and out of scale developments to offset a relatively small number of moderately affordable units, all of which is enabled by the law’s almost complete evisceration of zoning regulation. The focus should be on finding ways to increase home ownership, improving school systems, improving city management, and improving the economic landscape across the state, rather than flooding already congested areas lacking adequate transportation and sewer infrastructure with even more market-rate rental apartments.
It has been said that no one likes zoning but all the people. People benefit from home ownership, neighborhood stability, a consistent expectation of the pace of change, and the maintenance of property values. The ignored benefits of zoning in people’s everyday lives are what drives widespread public opposition to both 8-30g and the various anti-zoning initiatives proposed by our legislature in recent years.
Rather than seeking truly objective data, this ‘scorecard’ unfairly and publicly blames Towns, using criteria which are not even required by the statute that the Towns are being ‘scored’ on.
-Alexis Harrison, CT169Strong
