A housing bill awaiting Gov. Ned Lamont’s signature is drawing criticism from some local and state officials, who argue it overreaches into local zoning authority. Several Fairfield County officials have written to the governor, asking him to veto the measure.
“I just can’t get behind this,” said First Selectman David Bindelglass. “I’m very sympathetic to the fact that, somehow, we need more housing, but I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t think it’s this.”
House Bill 5002 introduced during the legislative session to address homelessness, but the 91-page measure also requires towns to standardize housing plans, assigns each municipality a share of the state’s housing need to plan and zone for, and allows the conversion of commercial properties to residential use while prohibiting minimum parking requirements.
Selectman Nicholas D’Addario, who is running for first selectman, said the bill undermines the principle of local governance.
“I believe land use decisions and development are best made by those who live in the community,” said D’Addario. “We need to craft housing solutions that respect local input and preserve the unique character of each town.
In a bipartisan show of opposition, Easton’s Board of Selectmen has written a letter to Lamont, asking him to veto the bill, as have officials in Darien, Fairfield and Westport.
Fairfield First Selectman Bill Gerber also urged Lamont to veto HB 5002, arguing that the bill would force the town to add many more affordable housing units despite Fairfield’s recent four-year moratorium under 8-30g and the hundreds of affordable units it has already built.
Lamont has publicly stated he is concerned about a part of House Bill 5002 that sets specific affordable housing targets for each town. He is weighing whether to sign the bill and fix it later or veto it and pursue a new version. He has until June 24 to sign the bill.
State Sen. Tony Hwang, who represents Easton, Fairfield, Newtown, Weston and Westport, called the bill “an arrogance of power.”
The bill, he said, originated from a study of homelessness but it “quietly morphed into a 47-section omnibus overhaul of Connecticut’s housing law.” The “dramatic transformation occurred not through consensus or robust debate, but through a strike-all amendment that replaced the bill’s content entirely, without a public hearing or meaningful cognizant committee scrutiny,” he said.
“Our towns are not the same,” said Hwang. “From coastal cities to rural farmland, from transit hubs to protected watershed areas, the needs and capacities of each municipality vary widely. This bill fails to reflect that complexity. Worse, it punishes thoughtful local planning and threatens our natural resources and environmental protections, especially in watershed communities like Easton, Redding, and Newtown.
Housing Committee Ranking Member state Rep. Tony Scott, representing Monroe and sections of Easton and Trumbull, voted against the bill. He argued it takes local control away from municipal elected officials, removes parking minimums, sets unrealistic numbers for towns and cities to reach, and favors unions.
“It is a pure back-room, shady deal to give money directly from the state to the unions with no oversight or way for the state to get its money back,” he said.
“This is not a city/town issue,” said Scott. “This is not a Republican/Democrat issue. There is wide bipartisan disapproval of this bill across the state. Places like Bridgeport, Fairfield, Easton, and Trumbull are against it, so are Republican-controlled local governments like Monroe and Newtown. This bill is very bad for the entire state of Connecticut, and I am glad to see so many municipal leaders coming out against it, and hope the governor is listening and considers vetoing it.”
While many local officials argue the bill undermines municipal autonomy and imposes impractical mandates, supporters see it as a necessary step to address a statewide crisis. State Rep. Anne Hughes, representing Weston, Redding and part of Easton, called the bill she voted for “an important and thoughtful step toward a region-wide and statewide structural effort to address the housing crisis.”
She cited a recently released Connecticut Business and Industry Association Foundation report detailing how the state’s housing shortage is holding back economic growth. “Direct-care staff, teachers, para-educators, firefighters and first-responder families often live far from where they work, relying on heavy commutes on congested highways,” said Hughes.
“Our well-educated public school graduates and children who grew up here cannot afford to stay or move back to the state. We are suffering from a brain drain, and we export to other states our most valuable assets and investment: our students,” she said.
