With soaring prices and shrinking inventory, finding a place to live in Connecticut has become more and more difficult in recent years and for a long time, Connecticut lawmakers have struggled to address the housing crisis in our state.
By some estimates, our state needs 90,000 or so housing units across the whole state.
Rep. Tony Scott (R-Monroe), Ranking Member of the Housing Committee, spoke for nearly five hours on the House floor in opposition to the omnibus housing bill, particularly a provision he says takes away local control.
Scott explains where he thinks the bill went wrong and how he thinks the legislature should tackle the housing problem in our state going forward.
Mike Hydeck: So your opinion of House Bill 5002 is, what? What’s your overall opinion?
Tony Scott: Yeah, the purpose of it was to try to build more housing, and I think we just didn’t get to where we needed to get to. There’s a lot of mandates, when we’re talking about local control into the towns and municipalities across the state that really are going to probably hamper some of that. Taking away that control of the locally-elected officials is going to be a disincentivized purpose of slow them down a little bit in their housing. So getting that feedback, and that local feedback, knowing that area, it’s getting to take it away, I think they’re going to be really paused a little bit more in terms of really trying to strive to get more housing, which is all the intent of the bill.
Mike Hydeck: So you think the way it is, it would slow it down. What changes would you like to see to amend that?
Tony Scott: Incentivize. More carrots, less sticks, right. Get that chance to allow these builders and developers to come in and incentivize them to come in and want to build housing so that we can find the right housing for the right districts. Too many times Hartford is trying to dictate what goes on in some of these other towns. There’s 169 different municipalities, and to be honest, it’s not a one size fit all option. Each individual town has their character, has their design, that they were looking forward to. We need to make sure we allow them to do that and not necessarily pass mandates down from Hartford to those municipalities.
Mike Hydeck: What about the effort that was on the table called Towns Take the Lead. At least the name of it says, ‘Hey, you decide what works for your town, and you try to meet the goals the state set.’ Is that a good thing?
Tony Scott: Yeah, it used to be what it was two years ago, was called Fair Share, and they changed the name because it wasn’t very popular when it was called Fair Share. So what it is is an allocation. They ran a report and they come up with an allocation of how many different affordable housing units across all the units, across all municipalities are mandated. So they’re mandating a number. So every town, for example, Easton, who’s in my district, has 7,500 people in the entire town. They’re mandated to have 1,276 affordable housing units. Affordable housing, not just total housing units, to get in there.
Mike Hydeck: How is that number calculated? It doesn’t calculate based on population and land mass? How is it calculated?
Tony Scott: It’s calculated based on your grand list and how high your grand list is.
Mike Hydeck: So it’s dollars, then?
Tony Scott: It’s dollars, and the richer towns are going to have to pull a lot more of that weight.
Mike Hydeck: So your town, Monroe, 18,000 or so people. One of the suggestions, because the law the state has on affordable housing doesn’t have a whole lot of teeth. It just says, ‘we recommend you do this.’ It says something to the effect of 300 units for Monroe, or something like that?
Tony Scott: Yeah, 326.
Mike Hydeck: So there’s 18,000 people. There’s 300 units. Is that a bad number, in your estimation? Like, is that figured out properly?
Tony Scott: You know, it’s not a bad number necessarily to have a goal to go strive for. I think it’s something that we, all the community, should be striving to make sure we have diversified housing. We do need more housing. There’s no question. People want to come to Connecticut, but, you know, if businesses leave, then those folks will leave. But the idea is to give those options. To give the municipality the option of how to do it, not necessarily mandate how they should do it and where they should do it. Instead, just find a way to incentivize them to build that more housing.
Mike Hydeck: So, there is, for argument’s sake, medium density housing in Monroe. There’s a couple of condominium complexes, Northbrook and another one across the street. Is that a solution in the future? We have senior citizens on fixed incomes. We have kids getting out of UConn who can’t afford to buy a house in Monroe. How do we solve this?
Tony Scott: Yeah, again, we need to have a diversified thing. You have seniors who are looking to stay in the State of Connecticut. But they’re getting priced out. They’re ultimately leaving, going to other states. We need to make sure we’re taking care of those. That’s the age-restricted housing. That’s something we need to be looking at, too, to make sure that we’re taking care of those folks and make sure they stay in the communities close to their family and friends and not have to force them out. There are ways to do it, but again, I say carrots over sticks. Let’s make sure incentivizing people and towns to do it, not necessarily put those mandates on them, because when they start mandating, folks really push back.
Mike Hydeck: So that recommendation is, they want towns and cities to come up with about 10% affordable housing. I looked this up and correct me if I’m wrong, is Monroe at about one or 2% right now? So if there’s no carrot or stick, I mean, even if there was a carrot, seems like developers aren’t taking the carrot.
Tony Scott: Yeah, and I agree. You know, there’s just not much land space to go. I mean, think. You’re from Monroe. You’re Monrovian. You know, in the past, there’s not ton of space to go. We’ve developed pretty well. The fact of trying to find a place to add 326 affordable units, and then no one’s gonna build anything that’s 100% affordable. So you’re going to build maybe 1,000 to 1,500 units to get that 300. Where are you going to find, where are you going to build over a thousand units in the town of Monroe? I don’t know. You know Monroe well, too. It’s very tough to find that kind of area.
Mike Hydeck: So when the local municipality has control, they do have the power in this bill to contest the number, right?
Tony Scott: Correct, yeah. So what we’re going to do is they’re going to get some information out that they’re going have to put back to the state, and OPM is going to look at the information. Why can’t you build your number that’s been allocated to you? And then they’ll kind of take a look at that and maybe bring their number down or up, wherever it might be. They’re gonna make that final decision. And then next year during session, we’ll come back and vote on those numbers and officially tie those numbers down to the actual municipality.
Mike Hydeck: So that’s gonna go 169 times?
Tony Scott: Well, no, we’ll have it all in one bill that will just go, and everyone’s got to sign off and vote on your district. In Monroe, Easton, Trumbull, if I vote yes, then I’m telling my town, my districts, my towns and my district, that you’re going to be stuck with those numbers.
Mike Hydeck: So do you foresee, oftentimes people worry like, ‘look, there’s going to be a 300-unit apartment complex right next to me.’ Should specific kinds of housing be delineated? So it’s like, ‘Look duplexes fit here in Monroe, not necessarily an apartment tower.’ Is that going to be part of the discussion moving forward, to get that local control?
Tony Scott: Unfortunately, part of 5002 takes that away. So we have, there’s a piece of the bill where you can take commercial properties and, as of right, move them to residential properties. So literally, you could be in a commercial zone.
Mike Hydeck: So there’s an empty Walmart. You could turn it into condos, if you wanted to?
Tony Scott: Yeah, right there in the middle. And it’s as of right, meaning that you don’t even have to go through the planning and zoning department. You don’t have to have a public hearing in town. You just come and do it right away. That’s part of the bill, and that’s when we talk about local patrol losing that piece. That’s not what that place was zoned for. That’s not what the town wanted. But now they can do that, mandate it right now, through that legislation, 5002.
Mike Hydeck: I could talk about this all day. We’ve got to leave it there. Representative Scott, we appreciate your time.