Affordable housing may be in remission as a concern that rouses neighborhoods to fury and outrage. But it’s not history, it’s not over and done with.
“People are always afraid it’s going to change the character of the neighborhoods. There’s this big misconception,” said Planning and Zoning Commission Chairman Rebecca Mucchetti.
“They hear ‘affordable’ and they go straight to inner-city problems.”
Town leaders hear the fear.
Less than a year into a four-year affordable housing moratorium, town officials are thinking beyond the current moratorium, at those next four years — which start in 2018.
They’re looking at what the town will need to do to qualify for a second four-year moratorium so developers won’t be able to use the state’s 8-30g law to force in high-density projects in defiance of the Planning and Zoning Commission’s carefully constructed plans and regulations — and, often, against neighbors’ wishes.
“The goal is to develop a plan for affordable housing within the four-year period so you may be eligible for another four-year moratorium,” Town Planner Betty Brosius said. “And if you don’t have a plan, and you don’t develop a sufficient amount of affordable housing within the four-year moratorium, you will again be subject to the 8-30g law when the moratorium ends.”
Control
“Planning for affordable housing in town gives the town more control of where and how much of it is built,” Brosius said.
“The idea of that is, you are in the driver’s seat, you control the type of affordable housing that is produced and where it’s produced, and who does it, as opposed to being subject to an outside developer telling you where you’re going to put the affordable housing, under 8-30g.”
The Planning and Zoning Commission has begun meeting regularly to work on the plan — the last Tuesday evening of each month is now set aside for that purpose.
“We know that the affordable stuff rents before the paint’s dry,” Chairman Mucchetti said.
“We thought we’d start talking to people.”
She cited buildings approved under the 8-30g process — Dany LeTourneau’s 28 Gilbert Street building, with eight units, three of them affordable, and the 20-unit building Steve Zemo has nearing completion at 86 Governor Street, which will have six affordable units.
“My understanding is Steve Zemo has his new building fully rented and it’s not going to be ready until June or July,” she said.
“Dany LeTourneau rented out his full building in a week, just by putting a sign on the grass.”
Zemo said the new building’s six affordable units are already rented, and the market-rate units are “renting nicely” but not all 14 were taken.
“There is a strong demand for affordable units in Ridgefield at different levels of affordability,” Zemo said.
“There is a need for workforce housing, senior housing and family housing.”
Members of the Ridgefield Housing Authority told a similar story at Planning and Zoning’s April 28 work session on affordable housing.
“The last time I checked, we had 84 people on the waiting list at Ballard Green,” said Housing Authority Chairman Bob Hebert.
How many openings?
“We have maybe five or six year,” he said.
Sometimes when an opening comes up, people on the waiting list have found other places, he added. But many people endure long waits.
“Ballard can be years, the subsidized rental ones,” said the authority’s Frank Coyle.
Family affordable
In addition to Ballard Green’s more than 60 units, the Housing Authority has a 20-unit affordable “family housing” complex — the Meadows — on Prospect Ridge, near its Congregate Housing for seniors who need services.
There were vacancies a couple of years back when the Housing Authority had a problematic management company. Now, under a competent management firm, the Meadows is full, Hebert said.
“We see a fair amount of single moms at Meadows, a mom and two kids. A couple of guys in some situations. They work at Stop & Shop, or Walgreens,” he said.
Even the authority’s “general affordable units” — which don’t have state-subsidized rents, but are below market rate — tend to keep their tenants.
“We don’t have turnover on those units, even though they are higher priced,” Coyle said. “Are the people coming from town? I think most of the ‘senior’ and ‘affordable’ they do.”
“I’ve probably put in over the last two and half years, 15-plus people from town,” Hebert said.
Private developers
But much of the “affordable housing” in town has been built by private developers under the state’s controversial 8-30g law, which allows developers to ignore town zoning rules if they are proposing a project with at least 30% of the units “set aside” to be rented under state affordability guidelines.
Towns and cities with 10% or more of their housing stock “affordable” by state standards are exempt, but all others are subject to 8-30g — although they can qualify for four-year “moratoriums” if they are making progress toward addressing the issue.
There are 9,420 dwelling units in town, by the 2010 census, and 10% of that is 942. That’s how many state-qualified “affordable” units the town would need to be exempt from 8-30g. The town is nowhere near that.
The town did qualify for a moratorium by showing affordable housing progress equivalent to 2% of the 9,420 dwelling units under a complex point system the state uses, based on the rent levels of units in an 8-30g property.
In 2013 Town Planner Betty Brosius counted 30 multifamily properties with 1,701 units.
In a more recent survey focused on set-aside developments under 8-30g, she found 18 properties with a total of 570 units — 179 of them “affordable” — that have been approved dating back to 1991.
Four of those are under construction. And four haven’t been built — including the 306-unit Eureka “Bennett’s Pond” project, approved in 2008 but is still in court.
Most of the multifamily units in town, and even many of the “affordable” units, don’t count toward qualifying the town for a moratorium, for one reason or another.
And in trying to qualify for a second moratorium, the town needs a new list of units.
“In 2018, we’ll need 188.4 points, just like we needed in 2014,” Brosius said. “You can’t count the same units twice, so it has to be new development.”
Brosius has a list of seven 8-30g projects with 65 units — 21 affordable — that would qualify for the second moratorium, providing 48.5 of the 188.4 needed points.
If the Eureka development off Bennetts Farm Road gets out of court and is built, that would add another 306 units, 92 or them affordable, to the list, bringing the point total to 263 — more than required.
“You can work toward the 2% goal during the four-year period.” Brosius said.
“The moratorium is based on a point value worth 2% of the number of dwelling units within your municipality. If you can gain that same point value again within four years, and it has to be new housing, you can be eligible for another four-year moratorium.”
Planning process
The commission is in the early information-gathering stages of a process expected to result in the town having an affordable housing plan — and a platform from which to seek a second moratorium.
“We’re looking at all kinds of things. The first two discussions we had we were just sort of throwing everything out there,” Mucchetti said.
“New Canaan has a regulation where every building permit, I think it’s 1%, goes into the ‘housing trust fund’ and then that accumulates over the years and the town uses that for building more affordable housing, rehabilitating existing affordable housing, buying land to build more.”
Westport has a different approach. “Any development on the Post Road, if it includes a residential component, it has to have an affordable component to it,” Mucchetti said. “That’s another thing. Do you have a certain part of town where you insist — a term for it is ‘inclusionary zoning,’ you include affordable housing.”
The town is also looking at doing “transit-oriented development,” or “TOD,” in Branchville, with its train station and buses on Route 7. Grant money has been secured to do studies. And any TOD in Branchville would likely have an affordable component, Mucchetti said — the state prefers “workforce housing” near transportation.
Town Planner Brosius also put forward some thoughts.
“Betty suggested that we look at an overlay zone, more of a floating zone,” Mucchetti said. “If somebody has a piece of property that they’re looking at, rather than coming down with the heavy footprint of 8-30g, maybe we can come up with an alternative, collaborative overlay zone.”
Mucchetti said the commission will eventually have public hearings on affordable housing.
“There are an awful lot of people who have strong feelings about this, and we want to hear that, too,” she said. “But not until we get a better knowledge-based foundation.”
The post Affordable housing ain’t dead appeared first on The Ridgefield Press.