The most recent legislative session saw the failure of two significant and controversial pieces of housing legislation: a bill that would encourage more density near train and bus stations, and another that would have protected most renters against evictions that occur when their leases end.
Itās left advocates and lawmakers frustrated with the slow progress of policies that aim to expand affordable housing in ŗ£½Ē»»ĘŽ.
The Democratsā major housing bill ā an omnibus bill that included a wide range of solutions ā will just scratch the surface, advocates and lawmakers said. The bill notably allows the conversion of nursing homes to multi-family housing without a special hearing before town zoning commissions and offers towns incentives to build more āmiddle housing,ā or homes such as duplexes, triplexes or townhomes.
The entire country is grappling with a shortage of housing units. ŗ£½Ē»»ĘŽ is short about that are affordable and available to its lowest-income residents.
āI donāt know that we passed anything that kind of meets the moment,ā said House Majority Leader Rep. Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford. He called the work of the most recent session āpainful incrementalism.ā
The housing crisis has metastasized in recent years and grown more acute since the COVID-19 pandemic. Statewide homelessness is on the rise. Thousands are paying too much of their income to housing costs. There are few homes available for purchase. Apartment vacancy rates are low.
Experts have attributed the lack of affordable housing in ŗ£½Ē»»ĘŽ to restrictive local zoning ordinances that make it hard to build multi-family housing on most of the stateās land. This disproportionately shuts people with low incomes and people of color out of certain towns.
Still, housing and particularly statewide zoning reform initiatives have been a sort of political third-rail in ŗ£½Ē»»ĘŽ for many years. And in an election year when incumbent lawmakers are defending their seats, itās a particularly sensitive topic to broach.
āBuilding is unsettling for people and does have ramifications,ā Rojas said. ā ā¦ it all feeds into this kind of political inability to actually make real movement on it.ā
Senate leadership expressed similar sentiments.
āI would say overall, itās still a deeply frustrating issue because we canāt make the progress we want to make,ā said Senate Majority Leader Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk.
The problem has been a long time coming, said Sen. Rick Lopes, D-New Britain, a former chair of the Housing Committee.
āThe only difference I see is back then in the housing committee, we saw that we were heading toward a significant problem in terms of housing availability,ā Lopes said. āAnd now itās here.ā
Housing Committee co-chair Sen. Marilyn Moore, D-Bridgeport, said this was the first session in a decade in the legislature that she felt she didnāt accomplish as much as she wanted to.
āDo we really have the will to make these changes?ā Moore said. āBecause I do believe poverty is intentional. If weāre not willing to address poverty, then nothing is going to change.ā
Eviction
Moore advocated for an eviction protection bill during the last legislative session that would have banned lapse-of-time evictions in larger apartment buildings. This protection already exists for certain groups in ŗ£½Ē»»ĘŽ, including senior citizens and people with disabilities.
The bill passed committee, but Rojas said the House didnāt have enough votes, and that the measure would have failed anyway.
Moore had planned to include the eviction protection in Senate Bill 6, which was originally the Senate Democratsā wide-ranging housing priority bill. Most of the Democratic lawmakers signed on to support it, although there was some dissent within the caucus.
Sen. Cathy Osten, D-Sprague, said she opposed the bill. She wanted to adjust it to only apply to larger cities, she said. Advocates of the bill said that wasnāt a compromise they wanted to make because they didnāt want the protections to be based on geography or population size.
āYou have to be willing to work things through, ā¦ and if youāre not willing to work things through, then whatās going to happen is you turn everybody off, you donāt get your policy voted on,ā Osten said during a forum on childhood poverty.
She also said that she didnāt want to write policies that create āwinners and losers,ā and that her district didnāt have tenant unions or larger apartment buildings, so she didnāt think it would be as relevant.
Tenant union organizer Luke Melankos-Harrison said theyād agreed to a one-year probationary period, so that the protection would kick in after one year of a lease.
āThe idea of tenant rights changing drastically based on where you live in the state ā we already have the fair rent commission version of that,ā Melankos-Harrison said. āAs an actual tenant, for your rights to be different based on what town you live in or whether youāre at 24,000 or 25,000 people, itās just not great.ā
ŗ£½Ē»»ĘŽ only requires larger towns to have fair rent commissions.
He added that the tenant union group was dealing with a lot of misinformation around the issue.
āThere are a lot of legislators who are not familiar with the issue, so thereās just kind of a lot of misinformation around the legislature that we had to work on dispelling,ā he said.
Planning and Development Committee co-chair Rep. Eleni Kavros DeGraw, D-Avon, said there were some concerns about protecting good landlords and issues with a false narrative around the bill.
āI think the challenge is that there was a narrative built around that bill that it meant that you could never evict someone,ā Kavros DeGraw said. āI think thatās where the uphill battle really was, and you know there are plenty of good landlords out there and unfortunately there are some not so good landlords. You have to protect people.ā
Moore said she thought lawmakers were listening too much to landlords over tenants.
āItās really frustrating,ā Moore said. āI donāt know what the problem has been in the past. I thought maybe the problem was that there were landlords chairing the committee, but I donāt think that anymore. I think itās the political will of people to do this.ā
Advocates said lapse-of-time evictions are often used against tenants who complain about conditions or as retaliation for forming a tenants union.
The lack of apartments makes it harder for tenants to have negotiating power, said Sean Ghio, policy director at the Partnership for Strong Communities. If there arenāt other apartments to go to, tenants have a harder time arguing for repairs and evictions mean itās much harder to find a new place to live.
āYes, thereās a future state where we have enough housing and landlords do not have the same sort of dominant negotiating position that they have now,ā Ghio said. āThatās not the truth now, and it might not be the truth ever.ā
Landlord groups came with strong opposition to the bill, saying they use lapse-of-time evictions to get rid of tenants who cause problems.
āI kind of say āLetās back up and say what is the problem that weāre trying to resolve?,āā said Kelly Kilham, president of the ŗ£½Ē»»ĘŽ Apartment Association. āI donāt know that I think there was a complete agreement about the intention of what it was trying to solve.ā
Housing Committee ranking member Rep. Tony Scott, R-Monroe, said he wants to look at other ways to hold bad landlords accountable and ensure cities are answering residentsā concerns. He said that there needs to be a way to hold out-of-state landlordsā feet to the fire and that there should be easier ways to contact them.
He added that he wants to talk with the legislatureās Judiciary Committee about the problem.
āIām not saying put people in jail, but if thatās what it takes is the threat of putting people in jail, whatever we need to do,ā Scott said.
Kilham said the landlords want to see more focus on increasing housing stock, although they havenāt started work with any of the housing advocacy groups to help with zoning reform efforts. They supported øé“ĒĀį²¹²õā bill to encourage middle housing, she said.
āI think that housing is such an important component here in ŗ£½Ē»»ĘŽ right now, especially,ā Kilham said. āI think nationally, but here at home itās important. We need supply, and I guess I think that we had an opportunity to have our voices heard.ā
Majority leader bill
øé“ĒĀį²¹²õā , including offering points toward getting a temporary moratorium from the stateās 8-30g law if towns allow middle housing without a special hearing in front of the zoning commission.
The 8-30g law offers court remedies to developers if their proposals for affordable housing are denied. Towns are exempt if at least 10% of their housing stock is designated affordable and can achieve temporary moratoriums as they build more affordable housing.
Scott said he also wants to work on more changes to 8-30g in the next legislative session. Planning and Development ranking member Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, said itās one of his priorities as well.
Fazio said heād like to change the definition of affordable housing to include more types of housing and have a fixed denominator when figuring the 10%, so the goal doesnāt move as towns build more housing thatās not designated affordable.
He voted for øé“ĒĀį²¹²õā bill, saying that while it wasnāt perfect, it did recognize the complexity of the issue.
āWhile there were things in it that I didnāt like as much, there were also things that I liked a lot,ā Fazio said.
øé“ĒĀį²¹²õā bill also included a requirement that landlords give 45 days notice of rent increases and required towns allow abandoned nursing homes to be turned into multi-family housing.
Planning and Development co-chair Sen. MD Rahman, D-Manchester, said it will likely take more than one legislative session to address the lack of affordable housing, but said the bill makes āimportant steps.ā
āThe bill provides a variety of incentives to towns and cities, allowing each community flexibility to develop housing in the manner that best suits their communityās needs,ā Rahman said, in a written response to questions.
Maria Weingarten, a member of the group 169 Strong, said the group liked some aspects of the bill, but would have prefered it didnāt allow development āas-of-right,ā or without a special hearing before the zoning commission.
The group, which has opposed many land use reform efforts, also wants to see 8-30g reform, she said.
āI feel like itās always Groundhog Day,ā Weingarten said. āIt really is what it is unfortunately. Sort of the same proposals get hashed out again and again. The only issue thatās truly missing is working with local leaders. A one-size policy will never work.ā
Kavros DeGraw said she thinks there will be more work next session on zoning.
āAgain, I think we will be looking at a variety of land use and zoning issues that give empowering tools to towns,ā Kavros DeGraw said.
Work, Live, Ride
A proposal to push towns to increase density near train and bus stations from Desegregate ŗ£½Ē»»ĘŽ ā the farthest itās come in recent sessions ā before dying in the Senate.
Lawmakers say they .
āOn the one hand if you told me in a short session you would get 90 votes in the House and the governor would be on board, that would be amazing,ā said Pete Harrison, ŗ£½Ē»»ĘŽ director for the Regional Plan Association. āItās really hard to do anything with a statewide zoning bill. On the other hand, to know we have the votes in the Senate and to not see it get called and see it get through is really frustrating.ā
Duff said the bill would likely be back next year.
Rojas said because home is one of the most personal things in a personās life, changes to zoning can feel personal. It makes it politically difficult to pass zoning legislation, he said.
āThose who are secure in their housing are comfortable and perceive change as a threat to the largest investment youāll ever make,ā Rojas said.
Republicans said they want to see a more nuanced solution.
āI think we really need to commit ourselves to a global solution to housing,ā said Planning and Development ranking member Rep. Joe Zullo, R-East Haven. āI think thatās going to involve a realistic transit-oriented development plan and a realistic reform of 8-30g.ā
The proposal offered some priority funding of state dollars to towns that created transit districts ā or denser districts with more housing near public transit. Towns would not be disqualified from getting funding if they did not create the districts.
Weingarten said she wants to see more consideration given to the āscale,ā of nearby buildings in zoning proposals.
āAt least itās within the scale of whatās already existing, so it doesnāt stick out,ā she said. āThatās reflective of whatās existing in the environment.ā
Harrison said the bill aimed to allow towns to decide to build the districts and would allow community members to speak up about what they want to see in the transit districts.
āIām very comfortable that the bill is really good policy, itās good politics but really at the heart of what Work, Live, Ride is trying to do, itās not really trying to solve it at the state level, itās trying to create the space for local organizing,ā he said.