By Meghan Muldoon
WESTPORT–Westport State Rep. Jonathan Steinberg is cautiously optimistic about finding common ground on Connecticut’s latest affordable housing legislation, despite voting against HB 5002 in May.
He said the measure relied too heavily on blanket state mandates and overlooked the unique infrastructure challenges faced by suburban towns. Steinberg acknowledged the genuine housing crisis facing Connecticut but stressed that any solution must respect local planning and decision-making.
“Part of the solution”
“I want to be part of the solution,” Steinberg said. “I want to find a way to yes on this bill. I do not want to be known as the guy who voted against every affordable housing bill. A lot of people in Westport would say, just keep doing that.”
HB 5002 aimed to incentivize the creation of more affordable housing throughout the state but Governor Ned Lamont vetoed the bill in June citing many municipalities’ opposition to the fair share affordable housing target numbers and the elimination of minimum parking requirements for smaller apartment developments.
Special session
Lamont is calling for a special session this fall so that the General Assembly can reach a more collaborative solution.
Steinberg said he is concerned with the provision aimed at lowering building costs by eliminating parking requirements for developments under 24 units. Currently, Westport requires developers to provide 1.75 off-street parking spaces per one-bedroom unit and 2.25 per two-bedroom unit for all multi-family dwellings.
Sen. Maher
Despite her support for H.B. 5002, State Sen. Ceci Maher said she shares Steinberg’s concerns about exempting smaller complexes from parking requirements, given Westport’s existing parking and traffic challenges. Maher said she personally met with Governor Lamont regarding the parking component and believes this provision needs modification to make the legislation more palatable to her colleagues, like Steinberg, who couldn’t support the original bill.
“I know what the traffic is like in Westport,” Maher said. “We have issues in Westport with parking as it stands right now.”
Maher said she ultimately voted in favor of H.B. 5002 despite knowing many constituents in her district opposed the measure.
“It was very difficult for me to vote for that housing bill because I knew what people in my district were telling me,” Maher explained. “But when I looked at the bigger picture from a longer term trajectory, instead of the immediacy of this vote, I knew I needed to vote for it.”
One of the state’s most pressing issues
Highlighting the Connecticut Business and Industry Association’s identification of housing shortages as one of the state’s most pressing issues, Maher said she is concerned that without sufficient housing, the state will struggle to attract new businesses.
“Businesses will come in and they’ll look at Connecticut as a place to move to and then they’ll ask, where are my people going to live?” Maher explained.
According to Maher, the housing crisis has roots in the 2008 economic downturn when construction largely stopped. Subsequent challenges including COVID-19 and resulting supply chain disruptions have compounded the problem.
Maher describes a broken “life cycle” of housing that affects all residents – young professionals need apartments, growing families require houses with yards and retirees want to downsize but find no suitable options. “There are many people who don’t want to leave the towns that they’ve contributed to,” she said.
Rep. Johnson
State Rep. Dominique Johnson, who also voted for the original bill, believes the anticipated special session will produce “a better bill” that addresses many of the concerns raised by constituents while maintaining the legislation’s core goal of expanding affordable housing opportunities across Connecticut.
“What used to be affordable is now astronomical,” Johnson said. “Not everybody in Westport works in the finance sector. A $2 million starting price for a home in Westport does exclude people in the helping professions, people wanting to move back home to start their family, and seniors.”
While Johnson has not been directly involved in the current negotiations, she’s encouraged by indications that legislative leadership and the governor’s office are working toward consensus.
“Missing middle” housing
Johnson particularly supports provisions in H.B. 5002 that incentivize “missing middle housing,” duplexes, townhouses and smaller single-family homes that serve as entry points for homeownership. She contrasts this with the large apartment buildings that have dominated recent development in Norwalk, which she believes overwhelm the cityscape.
Steinberg told Westport Journal that he has been actively negotiating with legislative leadership on several problematic sections of the bill. Working with the Western Connecticut Council of Governments, Steinberg has proposed changes that would maintain some local control while still advancing affordable housing goals. These include requiring public hearings for certain projects and allowing regional solutions rather than forcing every municipality to meet identical requirements.
Steinberg defended Westport’s efforts to address affordable housing, citing significant development along the Post Road and upcoming projects like Hiawatha and developments near the train station.
“Westport has not been given the credit it deserves for having changed its tune over the last 10, 15, 20 years and built a lot of affordable housing in appropriate areas,” he said.
He acknowledged that Westport, like many highly-developed suburban communities, will never reach the 10 percent affordable housing threshold required under the existing 8-30(g) statute.
Towns not near 10% affordable
Currently, 420 of Westport’s 10,567 dwellings, or 3.97 percent, are considered affordable. The town would need to build over 1,000 affordable units to meet the state-mandated goal of 10 percent.
Neighboring towns face similar challenges. Only 4.2 percent of Darien’s housing stock and 3.05 percent of Fairfield’s is deemed affordable. Greenwich’s affordable housing inventory is at 5.3 percent while the larger municipalities of Stamford and Norwalk boast slightly more than 13 percent of affordable housing.
Johnson acknowledges that Westport has been a leader in affordable housing efforts in lower Fairfield County but argues that past progress doesn’t eliminate the need for continued action. “The conversation can’t stop around the most vulnerable citizens, like seniors,” Johnson explained.
Maher also praised Westport’s proactive efforts, including inclusionary zoning requirements and the affordable housing fund, as well as the work of organizations like Homes with Hope. However, she maintains these local efforts, while commendable, aren’t sufficient to address the statewide crisis.
“We need this housing,” Maher said.
“Affordable” is a moving target, a subjective term which depends on more than a family’s annual income. For example: What is “affordable” for a family of four with a disabled child is not the same as it is for a conventional two-parent, two children household.
A better, more objective standard would be “below market rate housing” or a specified percentage below market rate. That would be more easily ascertainable and would take into account existing differences in the cost of housing from town to town.
As the General Assembly moves forward in its forthcoming special legislative session, I would urge the members to not only consider a revised HB5002, but also add 8-30g into the mix. It’s time to have a single collaborative approach to affordable housing and not separate laws.
I am astounded that representatives and citizens alike continue to focus on affordability, location, parking, and myriad other issues regarding the thousands of affordable housing units that the state of Connecticut wants built, but no one is focused on traffic. I95 has been officially cited multiple times as the single slowest interstate in the entire country. But one does not need statistics to grasp this issue. Drive from Fairfield to Greenwich any time of any day of the week and experience the hours that it now takes. What happens when these thousands of new residents are added to the mix, as they are projected to be local workers, so will drive rather than take metro north.