Legislators To Seek Update of Affordable Housing Law

Is affordable housing available in Branford?

That depends on who’s counting.

— The state says there isn’t enough.

— Regional planners say there are housing options the state isn’t counting.

Branford ’s diverse population resides in homes running the gamut from multi-million dollar mansions on Long Island Sound to condos and clusters of trailer park courts, at least seven established mobile home parks from Short Beach to Stony Creek. Much of Branford’s inexpensive housing does not qualify as “affordable” under the state’s definition because it’s not deed-restricted or subsidized.

Affordable housing has been in the news in Branford this year because of three separate projects that came before the Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Commission.  The Summit Place project under the new Incentive Housing program was approved; the Pawson Road request under the original state statute was denied but the owner recently filed a revised application; and plans to replace the aging Parkside Village public housing complex were temporarily withdrawn as new sites are sought. All the hearings were well-attended.

In addition, the state legislature is working to update the affordable housing statute 8-30g which currently allows developers to ignore zoning regulations if a municipality has not met its quota. The bill to upgrade the statute passed in the state House of Representatives, but the legislative session ended before the Senate could vote. The bill has bi-partisan backing from 32 House co-sponsors.

“It had an incredible amount of support from all different kinds of communities,” said State Rep. Lonnie Reed, (D-Branford). Reed recently discussed affordable housing issues with the Eagle. She said loopholes in the statue have allowed “highjacking of the 8-30g statute to use it for other pursuits that really have very little to do with affordable housing, but everything to do with intimidating municipal commissions.”

It’s a multi-faceted issue.  The goal is to make sure there are quality options for the working poor, low-income seniors, and disabled people on limited incomes. Reed said the statute needs to be updated to end abuse that has undermined its credibility.

“When unscrupulous people misuse and misappropriate it, that undermines the ability to do good affordable housing where it needs to happen in ways that really benefit people who need good, safe, affordable housing,” Reed said.

Town Planner Harry Smith recently told the Eagle he’d like to see the statute revised. ​“There are loopholes in the statute, and it’s been used in ways it wasn’t intended to be. It’s like a cancer treatment, it’s a shotgun, across-the-board way to get at the issue, but it has so many side-effects in terms of its potential impact on communities.”

Statute Throws Planning ​“Out the Window”

Smith said developers of affordable housing projects under the current state statute can basically ignore local planning and zoning.

“By superseding zoning, you throw all that planning out the window, and it doesn’t matter whether you have a Plan of Conservation and Development that carefully considers the need for affordable housing, and carefully proposes certain locations or areas that might be more appropriate,” Smith said.

“For example, the Incentive Housing zone has a criteria that strongly considers the fact that public transportation should be adjacent to whatever site is proposed, while 8 – 30g has no such criteria,” he said. ​“So the town can create these regulations and when an 8 – 30g application comes, it just doesn’t matter.”

In addition to the Incentive Housing regulations, Branford also has affordable housing provisions under local regulation 5.5 which allow for construction of single-family homes in a denser type layout.

Smith said the state statute could be revised to take into account a community’s planning efforts. ​“I would love to see something that is more pro-active, and that gives communities more credit for planning and designating areas where affordable housing projects could be located.”

Smith said numerous factors should be considered when designating affordable housing locations, such as public transportation, traffic, access to services, and environmental issues.

He would like the statute to address coastal issues and floodplain concerns.

“That kind of thing is a big concern to Branford in particular because of our location,” Smith said. ​“We’re a little unique on the coast because we have a much larger area of our community within the coastal management boundary.”

Pawson Road Controversy

An unusual situation occurred in Branford this year when a Middletown man submitted simultaneous requests to build either a single-family home or affordable housing units on a half-acre environmentally-sensitive site that had already been deemed “unbuildable.”

Arsalan Altaf requested a special exception from P&Z to construct two buildings with six residential units at 239 Pawson Road under the state’s affordable housing statute CGS 8-30g. According to the statute, 30 percent of housing must be designated as affordable—in this case it would be two of the six units.

Altaf simultaneously requested several variances from the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) to build a single-family residence on the same lot.  The 1/2 acre property is about 200 feet from the Branford River, and is prone to coastal flooding. It has tidal wetlands, and an easement to adjacent state-owned open-space property.

The ZBA had deemed the lot “unbuildable” when a previous owner applied for variances in January 2015. Altaf purchased the property in September 2015 for $35,000. It was appraised at $71,000.

In August, the ZBA denied the requests for variances for a single-family home, but Altaf filed an appeal of the decision with the New Haven Superior Court.

During the P&Z public hearing, Reed told the commission, “I think one of the things going on here … is that the real objective is to get that single home in there, so this statute is being used as a weapon to try to make that compromise.”

In November, the P&Z denied the request for affordable housing, based on an 8-page resolution which listed conclusions and opinions from several experts, including the town attorney, town engineer, fire marshal, and an environmental analyst from the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP); and other testimony from the hearing.

Altaf submitted a revised application this month for affordable housing on the same lot —- this time with one building containing three units, one of which would be affordable. The P&Z will hold a public hearing on the revised application as it did for the first application.

The proposed Affordable Housing Land Use Appeals Procedure Act, which will come before the 2017 legislative session, proposes to reduce the instances in which an affordable housing developer can appeal a municipality’s rejection of an affordable housing project.

Reed: “Battling Without Up-to Date Data”

Reed told the Eagle that House Bill 5363 would update the affordable housing statute to consider a wider range of housing. A municipality that has 10 percent or more affordable housing, according to state definitions, can be exempt from some of the statute’s requirements.

The proposed bill would also make it easier for municipalities to qualify for a four-year moratorium by lowering the minimum number of housing unit-equivalent (HUE ) points; by establishing bonus points for certain unit types; and expanding the unit types that count.

“It’s really something a lot of us want to clarify and refine and also make it easier to achieve a moratorium on affordable housing by using existing housing to qualify,” Reed said. She said moratoriums would allow time to do a “significant statewide inventory and have real analysis and data. We want a breather because what we’re doing now is battling without up-to-date data.”

Reed hoped to upgrade the affordable housing statute several years ago but there wasn’t enough interest.  In recent years, Milford and other towns have faced multiple affordable housing proposals under 8-30g. “The affordable housing statute is being used to shoehorn in density of housing by developers that are questionable,” she said.

Reed is optimistic about the bill’s passage during the session that starts in January. Last spring, the House voted 110 in favor of the bill; 35 against it; and 6 abstentions. “The last session we really did get traction because the statute is getting abused,” she said.

Defining Affordable

The state’s affordable housing statute says property must be “deed restricted” or federally-assisted to qualify as affordable housing — which means Branford only has 3.46 percent of qualified housing— well below the 10 percent required by the statute. The percentages of state-defined affordable housing are listed on the state’s Affordable Housing Appeals list.

“The crucial thing is that the Affordable Housing Appeals list number is just a number,” Smith said, and it does not take into account housing units that are affordable to the same population.

During a recent P&Z public hearing, Smith said data from the South Central Regional Council of Governments shows that in 2015 Branford had 22 percent of homes that met the criteria of affordable housing for the 80 percent mark; and 12 percent for 50 percent mark.

The median household income for Branford was $71,058 in 2015; and the state’s was $71,346 in 2015. When the state calculates affordable housing it uses whichever is lower, the area or state median household income.

State statute 8-30g says an affordable housing project must have 15 percent of its units set aside for people earning less than 80 percent of the median income, and 15 percent for people earning less than 60 percent.

Condo Questions

Branford has long been known as the Condo Capitol of Connecticut, but many condos are no longer owner-occupied and have become rental units. Those lower-priced units are not on the state’s affordable housing list because they’re not deed-restricted. There are also numerous trailer courts whose occupants could qualify as low-income, but their homes are also not on the state’s list.

“If you look at what those units are renting for, and the income of the families who might be living in there, they easily could qualify as affordable housing,” Smith said. “It’s a lot of definition issues.”

Reed said she knows families who have left urban situations to come to Branford because they hear that condos in Branford are affordable, and they want to live in town even if it means working an extra job, because they want a safe community with good schools. “I think we’re having a lot more folks coming here than we’ve seen before, they’re young families trying to make it,” Reed said.

New Affordable Incentive Housing

In January, the P&Z unanimously approved a request by developer Alex Vigliotti to convert two existing office buildings on Summit Place into apartments, but his request to build two new apartment buildings on adjacent property was denied.

The site plans that were approved in May  called for converting the office buildings at 14 and 22 Summit Place into a total of 35 apartment units under the Incentive Housing Overlay District (IHOD) program.

An IHOD is a relatively new type of affordable housing that was created by the state in 2007 as an incentive for towns to develop new housing regulations for moderate income families. At least 20 percent of the units must be affordable for households earning 80 percent or less of the median income for Branford. In this case, seven units would be deed-restricted as affordable. 

Branford’s IHOD regulations have been on the books since 2011, and Vigliotti’s proposal was the first to utilize the program. The incentive housing designation allows denser housing levels, and favors projects that have access to public transportation.

Parkside Village Plans Continue

Plans to replace the aging Parkside Village I complex at 115 S. Montowese St. are still in flux, and the Housing Authority is looking at other locations for the low-income public housing project. The authority recently launched a search for properties that could possibly serve as an alternate to using the current site.  The authority was not able to find any suitable sites when they searched in recent years.

The three buildings that comprise Parkside Village I were built in the 1970’s, and are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The complex includes 50 units for low-income seniors and people with disabilities. A second complex on adjacent property, Parkside II, was built in 1984 and has 40 units.

The 90 housing units count toward the state’s tally of affordable housing units in Branford. The Housing Authority submitted the application through standard P&Z procedures, not the state’s 8-30g process which would supersede local zoning.

Initial plans to replace Parkside I met with an outcry from neighbors when the public hearing began in September. Plans called for construction of one large building with 71 units that would be available for low-income people of all ages. Revised plans called for 61 units.

However, the Housing Authority withdrew the application in October after it became apparent the project could not be approved in time to meet the federal funding application deadline.

First Selectman Jamie Cosgrove held an informational session in November in his Town Hall office to discuss the issues and the need to replace Parkside housing.

During that meeting, Tacie Lowe, a member of the Housing Authority, said replacing Parkside Village is a complex issue. “It’s a problem as a community that we need to address. I don’t think it’s going to be solved by the Branford Housing Authority. It’s got to be solved as a community,” Lowe said.

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