To the Editor:
HB 5002, which was recently passed in Hartford by the House & Senate, will have significant impact on our community if it is signed into law. The bill is lengthy, but I would like to highlight some of what I view as the most troubling features for Greenwich.
Section 2 – Converts commercial only zones to allow 2-9 unit multifamily development “as of right” with no parking requirement and no affordability set-aside requirement. Could be 100% market rate developments that do not help the Town solve its affordable housing challenges or achieve 8-30g moratorium points. This creates significant change to historic land use patterns in parts of Town like East/West Putnam Avenues, Greenwich Avenue, and Sound Beach Avenue that already have significant parking challenges based on existing commercial uses.
Section 3 – Prohibits the P&Z Commission from implementing any parking requirements for proposed residential development of less than 24 units anywhere in Town.
Section 6 – Requires the Town to prepare an affordable housing plan for submission to the State OPM every five years. Since Greenwich is in the highest 80% of the net grand list per capita towns, it must also prepare a “priority affordable housing plan” that sets forth how the Town is going to change its zoning regulations to “create a realistic opportunity” that the 1,000+ affordable housing units required for Greenwich under the State’s “Fair Share” formula are going to be created. The Town doesn’t own enough land to create a “realistic opportunity” to build that number of units. The only way would be through regulation changes to increase density, height and available areas for multifamily development, further eroding traditional land use patterns. Plus, there are no tools in the bill to make affordable units economically feasible for developers in a Town like Greenwich with extremely high land and construction costs. Who knows what future legislation might impose on the Town as a result of its lack of compliance with the “Fair Share” requirements?
Section 17 – The Town is responsible for developer legal fees if it loses any Section 8-30g related litigation.
This bill is long on bureaucracy and regulation and short on real world solutions to the State’s chronic shortage of affordable housing. It does not move us forward. There are so many positive steps that could have been taken with this legislation, like:
• Improvement and expansion of the State’s low-income housing tax credit program to make more private sector capital available for new affordable housing development
• Utilize a set-aside of State sales tax revenues on building materials, equipment, and services to support revenue bonds sold to provide “gap capital” on new affordable housing developments
• Offer State reimbursement to municipalities that provide property tax abatements to new affordable housing developments with long term affordability restrictions
• Allow Developers to accelerate depreciation of eligible property expenditures in connection with new affordable housing developments
I would encourage Governor Lamont to veto this bill and send the House and Senate back to the drawing board to develop practical solutions, not onerous regulation.
Ken Rogozinski
Riverside
