First Selectman Camillo’s call for a moratorium on state housing mandates, citing strain on gas and water infrastructure, doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Greenwich’s affordable housing sits under 6%, well below the state’s 10% target, and has grown less than a percentage point in over two decades. That’s not a category of housing large or fast-growing enough to be overwhelming our utilities. Even within 8-30g developments, roughly 70% of units built are market-rate, not affordable.
The far more plausible driver of new utility demand is the market-rate teardown-and-rebuild boom the town has actively permitted for years, replacing modest homes with much larger ones. Median home prices here are up double digits year over year, exactly what you’d expect if bigger, higher-consumption homes were straining the system.
Greenwich has a long history of citing character, process, or now infrastructure to resist housing it doesn’t want, while doing little to build affordable housing on its own. Before the town asks the state for a moratorium, it should show the public data breaking out utility strain by housing type, rather than let market-rate development off the hook.
Gregory L. Dallape
