CT Democrats to revise massive housing bill after Republican pushback

As published by NBC Connecticut and Jayne Chacko

Democratic lawmakers are amending a massive housing bill that aims to build more affordable housing.

The 92-page bill, titled “An Act Concerning Housing and the Needs of Homeless Persons,” is backed by the top Democrats in the house. They expected the legislation to be debated and possibly voted on Thursday night, but strong opposition sent lawmakers back to the drawing board.

“Expected pushback,” said Rep. Jason Rojas (D – House Majority Leader). “Not a surprise to me that we needed to change our plans.”

Rojas did not share what the amendments to the bill would be, but he expects it to be taken up again on Tuesday.

“There were some additional changes that were submitted to us, requested of us, by my Republican colleagues on that side of the aisle and we were taking them into consideration,” he said.

The Connecticut Business and Industry Association released a new report that found the state is short at least 100,000 units. The report found the state’s restrictive regulations played a big part in the shortage.

The bill would allow developers to begin work without local planning and zoning approval on certain projects. One component allows a company to develop commercial property into at most nine units without planning and zoning approval. Another component says planning and zoning commissions shall not “reject an application for any development solely on the basis that such development fails to conform with any requirement for off-street parking.”

Rep. Joe Zullo (R – East Haven) said those kind of policies are an override of local authority.

“The people who live there, who grew up there, who work there, you know, perhaps are elected by their towns, of course they’re going to know their towns,” he said. “Decisions are always better made locally.”

The bill does other things like build mobile showers and laundry trucks across the state, ban hostile architecture that targets unhoused people, award grants for transient-oriented communities and set a number of affordable units in each municipality.

“Housing is a tough committee,” said Rep. Antonio Felipe (D – Bridgeport). “We only get so much for time and we might as well do a lot of good with it.”