Van Set On Fire On West Rock Avenue

After noticing my ragamuffin-ness a few weeks ago, and having a great conversation, Pat Dillon told me (sympathetically) that I would ultimately be 'taxed' out of my property!!!!!!!!

I just hope she is not 'crimed' out of hers'!!!.

(not a 'slam', but a 'wink, wink -- nudge, nudge')

Bill,
It was great to see you.
You are correct. As I told you, I'm worried about affordable housing. I've heard from many people that they fear being priced out of their neighborhoods.
Whether it's a tax issue or a byproduct of development I wouldn't say. It's complex. The state has historically provided support for affordable units, and also renters rebates, but something new is happening. Affordable housing has come up more often in the past year.
I know it's a topic on the local level, and hope we'll have a robust policy for affordable housing to respond to new concerns.

You'll not only be taxed out of your house, you'll be taxed out of the state. 11% tax increase on your homes; plus reval and a constant state of fiscal problems. Then the state, with Pat Dillon and her comrade's help - torching our paychecks and burning down our household budgets with constant tax increases - bottle tax expansion and hike; sales tax expansion; then there's the new income tax on private sector pay checks only - public union employees are exempt from the new income tax. The bag tax and all the previous income tax and fee increases. It never ends. It will never end.

"but something new is happening."

Here is what is happening. We are not building enough housing to keep up with household formation.

The city and state needs to fast-track new, private apartment development, and it has to be in cities that have good transit connections, preferably within a mile of a train station.

Yes, this new construction will be "luxury" housing, because new housing is almost always, by definition, at or near the upper 20% of the market. This is the way things have been for thousands of years, except in a few places like Singapore where government controls the housing. But this also means that all those new households won't be renting places in Newhallville or Amity and bidding up the prices of those units, they'll be happily moving into the new housing.

New Haven really needs to be building thousands of new units each year, not just hundreds. Dillon, Lemar and others should help remove barriers, such as by making more funding available for brownfield remediation, and giving money to New Haven so it can really re-do its zoning.

Ultimately we also need better regional bus service and buses to Waterbury, too, because it's unlikely at this point that New Haven will be able to build enough housing given all of the NIMBY-ism in town. So many of us are going to have to move out there and commute.

I wager that the burning car incident is tied to homegrown dissent at the city's lack of real solutions.

I noticed that affordable housing came into the conversion. I talked with majority leader, Alder Furlow yesterday about nuisance trees. The conversation changed to affordable housing. The city is finalizing my inclusive housing proposal from their initial 10% setaside of New construction, up to 20%. While I take it as a victory for our city, it's still not enough. All existing housing needs to be included.

Some NIMBYs will say, "It will bring down property values, increase crime & destroy neighborhoods." Actually, that's the opposite of what really happens. More over, it strengthens the city economy & grows stronger. Its all in a proposal I made to city leadership.

https://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/upload/2019/05/Tom/Combined_Afforable_Housing_and_Green_Energy.pdf

Take care & be well.