Public Hearing Alert: Property Tax Increase Proposal

The Planning and Development Committee will be holding a public hearing on Monday March 22 at 10:00 am via Zoom on S.B.1068 An Act Concerning Property Taxes and Affordable Housing.

This is a bill proposed which ties an additional property tax on properties assessed at more than $300,000 (estimated fair market value of approx. $430,000) to the percentage of “affordable housing” in each municipality.

While I certainly support increasing options for affordable housing, penalizing residents of municipalities on this basis is excessive and plain unfair. We should be using incentives to promote affordable housing not the heavy hand of state government to punish local communities.

The mill rate schedule for towns with a certain percentage of affordable housing is as follows:

• 10% or more                        0.0 Mills
• 8%, but less than 10%       0.4 Mills
• 6% but less than 8%          0.8 Mills
• 4% but less than 6%           1.2 Mills
• 2% but less than 4%           1.6 Mills
• Below 2%                             2.0 Mills

Click here if you’d like to testify virtually (via Zoom.) The deadline to register is Sunday, March 21, at 3 p.m. Speakers are limited to 3 minutes of testimony.

The speaker order of approved registrants will be listed in a randomized order and posted on the Planning and Development Committee website on March 21st, at 8pm under Public Hearing Testimony. You may provide testimony via telephone. To register to testify by phone, call the Phone Registrant Line at 203-350-3769 to leave your contact information.

To testify via email, submit testimony in a Word or PDF document to PDtestimony@cga.ct.gov. Include your name and the bill number you are testifying on. Please copy me on the email.