A greater variety of housing options is essential to ensuring equity and to building a more diverse community.
It will:
● enable more people who work in our communities to live here, including essential employees (in areas such as emergency services, health care, education, government, and retail)
● help retain and attract businesses, which increases jobs and consumer spending in the local economy
● help seniors stay in a community they love as their housing needs change over their lives
● allow young adults – our children and grandchildren – who may be currently priced-out, to afford a home in our communities
● enable more people who want to be part of our beautiful, high opportunity communities to afford to live here – creating a pathway to more diversity.
Goal 1A:
Improve public awareness about the need for more housing options in our communities.
Action Steps:
● Host Community Conversations about housing
● Convene and facilitate meetings with town leaders (including P&Z Commissioners, Economic Development Commission, Housing Authority, Board of Selectmen, town officials), business leaders, realtors/developers
● Support statewide advocacy of more inclusive housing/zoning laws (through Pro-Homes CT, Open Communities Alliance, Partnership for Strong Communities)
Goal 1B:
Identify and work to eliminate institutional barriers to affordable housing in our communities.
Action Steps:
● Identify needed zoning regulations changes and work with town PZCs and town planners to revamp them, including:
o Minimum lot sizes, minimum dwelling unit floor areas, maximum building heights, and minimum parking space requirements
o The need for Special Permits for multifamily housing and mixed-use development in the Town Centers
o Expansion of Planned Residential Development (PRD) Districts and the Mixed Use Overlay District and reduction of minimum land area required for PRDs.
● Promote policies to encourage more housing options, including:
o Zoning mechanisms to encourage quality, village-style mixed-use, mixed-income, housing, such as the Form-Based Code1
o Making Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) regulations less restrictive
● Recommend creation of and serve on advisory committees to monitor progress of the towns’ Affordable Housing Plans
● Participate in efforts to update the towns’ Plans of Conservation and Development, ensuring that these plans provide specific goals for affordable housing and outline needed changes to zoning regulations.
Goal 1C:
Facilitate the development of affordable housing in our communities.
Action Steps:
● Advocate for more state/federal funding for town infrastructure needs (water/sewer) and legislation that enables development of more housing options in our towns.
● Work with town planners and PZCs to streamline the zoning application process to reduce barriers for developers.
● Identify ways that our towns can incentivize the development of quality, affordable housing, such as through tax abatements, requiring developers to construct at least 10% of new dwelling units as affordable or to make Payment of Fee-in-Lieu of Constructing Affordable Housing Units into a town-managed housing trust fund.