Advocates Say Aquifer Exemption Bill Circumvents Affordable Housing Requirements

by Jamil Ragland CTNewsJunkie

HARTFORD, CT – The General Assembly’s Housing Committee heard testimony Thursday on several bills including legislation that would provide towns with what could effectively lead to an exemption from affordable housing requirements.

House Bill 5365, introduced by House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, would exempt municipalities containing aquifer protection areas from the appeals procedure that is part of the state’s 8-30g affordable housing law. Currently, only towns that have met the 10% threshold of affordable housing units are exempt from the appeals procedure that can see developers build affordable units in a municipality without the town’s consent.

“My concern is, as we have this debate on affordable housing, is just recognizing those areas that are really needed to be conserved,” Candelora said in testimony before the committee. If you look at the state plan of conservation, most of [North Branford] is under a state plan of conservation, which means the state, as a public policy issue, doesn’t want to see that land developed for obvious reasons.”

Candelora said that although there are areas in his hometown that have sewers and other utilities more conducive to denser development, he doesn’t see how North Branford would be able to reach the 10% threshold to qualify for 8-30g exemptions due to the amount of the town that constitutes watershed.

Sen. Tony Hwang, R-Fairfield, also spoke in favor of HB 5365, although he acknowledged what he called the “noble” intent of 8-30g and said that there needed to be room for compromise between municipalities, developers, and people seeking housing.

“I think another part of it is that we need to look at how we can all work together to define affordable housing in these various communities that are aquifer-based areas or watershed protection areas,” Hwang said. “And I hope that this is a bill that’s a start to be able to work together to find needs in addressing these solutions.”

Hwang added that he felt any municipality that applied for an exemption based on aquifer status must have a plan to increase affordable, accessible, and diverse housing before it could qualify for the exemption. 

“Having a plan to move forward is a critical part, and for any community that considers this type of exemption they must have a plan moving forward and I think the solution has to be incorporated that incorporates local property owners, local municipalities, state, and federal,” he said.

Fair housing advocates, however, said HB 5365 is just another way for towns to circumvent state mandates for affordable housing.

Matthew Morgan, the executive director of the nonprofit housing advocacy group Journey Home, spoke in support of House Bill 6893, a bill that would appropriate $33.5 million in additional funding for the Department of Housing for programs to assist people experiencing homelessness. He says that the funds need to be annualized and connected to inflation to deal with the challenges faced by people experiencing homelessness.

“We’ve already heard of three deaths this winter from people who were unsheltered, and just this past week we heard of a person who had frostbite and had to have both of his legs amputated and is in the hospital,” Morgan said. “The hospital tried to discharge him just a couple of days ago, and we’re trying to figure out a stable place for him to go when our warming centers are full.”

Morgan said that the only way for Connecticut to end its homelessness crisis is to build more affordable housing, and that he had come to speak against HB 5365 for that reason.

“I’m also here speaking against one of the bills that exempts municipalities that have an aquifer protection area in their municipalities from 8-30g. From what I look at, when I look at the map of the aquifer areas in Connecticut, that’s 47% of the municipalities. We’re never going to get to  building that 100,000 units of housing we need if half of Connecticut is not subject to these requirements of building more housing that is affordable for people.”

Other housing advocates also called out HB 5365 over its language targeting affordable housing specifically.

“This bill is not about protecting aquifers. Rather, it is about exempting towns from their responsibilities under the Affordable Housing Appeals Procedure (Section 8-30g), even though the towns fail to meet the exemption standard,” said Sean Ghio, policy director for the Partnership for Strong Communities, in written testimony. “It is difficult to understand why the bill singles out affordable housing developments as singularly dangerous to our water supply while excluding other types of housing including market-rate multi-family and single-family developments.”

Ghio continued: “Section 8-30g applies to both types of housing developments. Single-family developments can be and have been Section 8-30g developments. What makes an affordable housing development, whether single-family detached homes or multifamily homes, a greater danger to our water supply than the same development without affordability restrictions?”