Opinion: How Connecticut Towns Maintain Segregation

A debate is raging within and between Connecticut’s cities and towns. 

This debate pits those who challenge Connecticut’s existing zoning regulations for their role in continued segregation against those who seek to define these changes as a challenge to local control. 

This played out recently at a state legislative Planning and Development Committee hearing that included public testimony on Senate Bill 1024: An Act Concerning Zoning Authority, Certain Design Guidelines, Qualifications of Certain Land Use Officials and Certain Sewage Disposal Systems (Desegregate CT’s bill) and House Bill 6611: An Act Concerning A Needs Assessment And Other Policies Regarding Affordable Housing And Development (Open Communities Alliance’s Fair Share bill) — two bills focused on zoning reform, fair share analysis and other tools to create more affordable housing. 

Debate centered on several questions. Are current land use policies racist? If those policies are racist, why isn’t anyone challenging that? Does this represent an infringement on local control? And will more affordable housing create an economic hardship for towns?

These questions are worthy of response. 

Racism, Segregation, & Zoning

Is current zoning upholding racial discrimination and segregation? The simple answer is yes. 

Our communities were built on zoning policy that was explicitly racist, and current practices maintain the status quo. Anyone seeking to better understand U.S. housing policy should read The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein. The author traces the historical racial discrimination in housing and banking policy to the wealth disparities seen today. 

Black families blocked from homeownership were prevented from building wealth, which directly correlates to modern-day wealth gaps. Black families were further blocked from accessing rental housing in suburban communities by zoning practices that prevented multifamily developments. Black families remained poorer and more likely to be renters, and today disproportionately benefit from access to affordable housing — both in rental and affordable homeownership efforts.

So, creating affordability and choice is fundamental to achieving desegregation.

The surest way to desegregate communities is to offer entry-level housing through affordable rental and homeownership. The small homeownership that was subsidized by the federal government in the 1940s and 1950s was exclusively for white families. The housing that formed the foundation of Connecticut’s suburbs began as homes that sold for $5,000 and are now valued at over $400,000 in places like Woodbridge. The entry-level housing that was available for white families built much of the generational wealth that now represents the wealth gap seen between white and Black families.

But too many of Connecticut’s towns fail to offer that entry-level housing anymore.

Instead over time they have increased lot size and included single-family home requirements. Making the choice to maintain town large lot zoning and $500,000+ housing price tags ensures continued discriminatory effect. It is disingenuous to ignore that history and look only to today ​“saying anyone can buy here, we don’t discriminate.” We must open pathways in these towns to both affordable rental and homeownership opportunities.

Action & Inaction

One legislator asked why, if discriminatory practices were happening, was there no action being taken? If something racist is going on, the legislator argued, then legal action should be taken.

The simple answer is: Many are making that case and taking action. How odd that our legislators cannot see that seeking legislative redress is one way of seeking to correct wrongs. It is precisely what is being asked by the proponents of bills like S.B. 1024 and H.B. 6611. 

It is also a claim that is being made currently through other legal means. Two examples are pending actions initiated by Open Communities Alliance — a HUD complaint filed against that State of Connecticut and the widely publicized action against the Town of Woodbridge.

Why can’t this be left up to local control to solve? The answer here is simple. Local control has been ineffective in solving this issue. For decades. 

Connecticut’s towns have made little progress toward meeting the 10 percent affordability standard established. The efforts to block affordable housing development in Connecticut are wide ranging and offer no shortage of potential litigation. Both the CT Mirror and ProPublica have documented almost 40 Connecticut towns that have blocked multifamily developments over the past 20 years.

CT Mirror spotlighted Weston’s inconsistency between its town residents’ (a town with a Black population of just 1.4 percent) Black Lives Matter rally and Weston town officials’ anti-racism rhetoric with the town’s subsequent action to unanimously adopt a strategic plan that keeps most development to single-family homes on lots of at least two acres, a requirement that has resulted in a typical sale price of $660,000.

What About The Costs?

Does increasing affordability add a cost burden to towns? Some testimony played into a narrative that affordable housing is costly to cities and towns. Painfully, even some who purport to support the development of affordable housing fell into this destructive narrative. 

The evidence base is quite extensive and clearly demonstrates the opposite.

Creation of affordable housing creates an economic boost. National studies have documented the creation of 80 jobs for every 100 units of affordable housing built and another 42 jobs supported by the spending from these locally earned wages.

OCA’s Connecticut-based study has documented the economic benefit of implementing their Fair Share proposal over the next 10 years at $79 billion in additional income for Connecticut residents, $12 billion in local and state taxes and the creation of 80,000 jobs.

Legislators cannot be ahistorical in their work. They cannot inherit a discriminatory history and fail to make the connections to the present day. And they cannot take actions today without fully examining how they are reinforcing the discrimination of the past. 

The answer to the question ​“What town in Connecticut is taking discriminatory actions?” is that, unfortunately, the majority of our towns are. 

The answer to legislators’ assertion that, ​“If something illegal is happening then action should be taken,” is that actions are being taken in HUD complaints and zoning change applications and potential additional litigation. And action is being taken by proposing legislative change. 

Why not leave it to local control? Because we have tried that with little success. 

And to those who believe that building affordable housing creates an economic drain, the answer is found in the many studies that have proven the economic boost associated with affordable housing development. 

Discriminatory action in government policy no longer looks like explicit ​“Blacks cannot live here” language but we are dealing with the legacy and inheritance of that language. Today we must look for the remnants of these policies in the disparate impact that remains.

When our policies have built communities through exclusive means, we cannot simply say that ​“the community is like this, people came here because it is like this and we want to keep it like this.”

We must take affirmative actions to change that.

If that means addressing town infrastructure issues, changing zoning policies and addressing underlying fears and biases, then that is what we must do. It is what we are called to do. It is why we marched. 

Karen DuBois-Walton, Ph.D. is the President of Elm City Communities/Housing Authority of the City of New Haven. Trained as a clinical psychologist, Dr. DuBois-Walton has led the agency since 2008. ECC/HANH’s vision is a New Haven where every resident has a safe and decent home that they can afford and opportunities to fulfill their goals.