Markeshia Ricks Photo
Neal-Sanjurjo makes the case for a regional solution.
New Haven brought its case to suburban leaders, and left with a promise to establish a committee to develop a 15-town strategy to tackle affordable housing.
The South Central Regional Council of Government (SCROG) voted unanimously during its regular monthly meeting Wednesday to create such a committee after hearing a pitch from New Haven Livable City Initiative Executive Director Serena Neal-Sanjurjo on the need for a collective approach to an affordable housing crisis that impacts the region.
Fresh off the heels of the work of New Haven’s Affordable Housing Task Force, Neal-Sanjurjo pitched the members of the SCRCOG on developing a set of regional policies that would not only increase the number of affordable housing units in the region but also deconcentrate poverty from cities like New Haven and strengthen the economy.
Neal-Sanjurjo said that the reality is that affordable housing is needed throughout the region. Twelve out of the 15 towns in the region fall below the 10 percent threshold for affordable housing. If each town in the region reached that threshold, an additional 7,335 units of affordable housing would be created.
She said young professionals and cops need that housing as well as low-income people. So do nurses and teachers who can’t find affordable housing close to work. Neal-Sanjurjo noted that her own daughter, a first-year attorney, finds it difficult to stay in Connecticut because of the cost of housing.
“This is not just about folks who are not working,” Neal-Sanjurjo said, “but those who are working. We want to give them an opportunity to stay here.”
North Haven First Selectman Michael Freda.
New Haven has sought to create more affordable housing by negotiating with developers to make at least 30 percent of their mixed-use projects geared to households making up to 80 percent of the area median income, a feat North Haven First Selectman Michael Freda called tremendous. North Haven hasn’t gotten up to 30 percent, but the planning and zoning commission in that town has pushed for developers to make at least 10 percent of their projects affordable.
“We’re also attracting these young professionals — pharmacists and nurses — who want to live in these apartments,” he said.
Michael Piscitelli, New Haven’s acting economic development administrator, said that the region is in a good position to latch onto the affordable housing problem and create strategic policies.
Matteson.
New Haven City Plan Commission Chair Ed Matteson said that he understands that there are political problems in talking about affordable housing. He argued SCROG must take on the problem or risk developing a “monoculture” of housing that is not sustainable.
“Some of it is a question of convincing people across the spectrum, in all of the towns, that it is in their interest to have a wider range of housing costs available,” he said. “When we have a monoculture of housing prices young people can’t stay.”
He said at the other end of the spectrum are the elderly who might not be able to afford to keep up an expensive property but would really like to stay in the town they’ve lived in for much of their lives.
Freda said the only pushback he has seen on the affordable housing issues are developers who are building acre to or half-acre plots. One suggestion that came up: looking strategically at the way that funding is doled out to developers who are building affordable or subsidized housing.
Neal-Sanjurjo noted federal officials are looking to state, regional and local officials to develop policies that would advance the resources for creating deeply subsidized housing.
“We just need policies that make sense,” she said.
The suburbs (white) have never done their share. Now they must contribute $$ to the cities that employ them and entertain them. They must integrate. They must house and feed their destitute as well as poverty stricken elderly.