Submitted by members of RTM, District 7
We are writing this letter as RTM Members of District 7, which represents the portion of central Greenwich that is north of the Post Road.
The entire Town of Greenwich is under siege by developers seeking to build large apartment complexes under the auspices of 8-30g, a State-mandated regulation designed to increase the number of units of what the State deems to be affordable housing.
The law as written lays a one-size-fits-all policy over diverse community structures throughout Connecticut; and in its current use, unintentionally exacerbates the ratio of total affordable housing stock in many of our communities and heavily burdens already over-taxed existing infrastructure including our roads, sewer system and already-constrained public water supply. Modifications to 8-30g need to eliminate the unreasonable burdens it will increasingly impose on some communities.
For those who have not been following the press or who have not participated in any of the public Planning and Zoning meetings, let us start with a brief overview. CT Statute 8-30g was enacted in 1989 and set an arbitrary goal requiring each town to have 10% of its housing to be deemed “affordable”. While Greenwich has some 1,380 units of housing that meet that statute’s definition, that accounts for only 5.3% of Greenwich’s total housing. Affordable employee housing offered, for example, to hospital workers, private/ parochial school teachers, or staff of non-profits, is not included in the State’s count on the grounds that it is not available to the general public. Also, locally-regulated single-family homes which allow auxiliary apartments in a single-family zone as long as either the owner or the tenant is a senior are not counted because these are not “deeded”. The Statute also ignores our Town’s property tax abatement programs which are designed to allow lower income groups of veterans, seniors, and handicapped to stay in their homes.
If a town in Connecticut has not or cannot reach the 10% threshold, a developer that designates 30% of the proposed project to be “affordable” can build the project even if it violates local zoning rules. Case in point in District 7: there are two major affordable housing proposals currently before the Planning and Zoning Commission: 1) a 192 unit 7-story apartment building on Church Street that would replace a restaurant, two small commercial buildings and several long-existing affordable multi and single-family rental properties in the Historic 4th Ward; and 2) an 86-unit 5 story building at 5 Brookridge Drive (515 East Putnam Avenue) which would require the razing of a 100-year-old single family home that is a long-standing landmark on the Post Road.
District 7 is not the only neighborhood where these projects and proposals are popping up. Taken together, these projects will never get Greenwich to the statutory 10% affordable housing goal because as the number of total residences increases with each project, so does the baseline off which the 10% is calculated.
It is impossible to ever catch up. Without the need to work within local guidelines for zoning set-backs, height restrictions, green space, parking etc., future large-and small-scale development proposals are likely to continue, many negatively impacting the Town’s constrained infrastructure, until we can repeal or at least modify/redefine 8-30g.
We will be advocating for modifications to 8-30g in the upcoming legislative session which began on February 9th . Unless we, Greenwich Residents, speak up, this law may become even more restrictive. Please contact your State Legislators and Governor Lamont, who is also a Greenwich resident, and urge them to support modifications to 8-30g that reflect economic reality and give Greenwich credit for the substantial effort it has already made to make affordable housing available to its residents.
• State Representatives:
Kimberly Fiorello, [email protected], Harry Arora, [email protected], Stephen Meskers, [email protected]
• State Senate: Ryan Fazio, [email protected]
• State Planning and Development Committee Co-Chairs: Steve Cassano, [email protected] and Cristin McCarthy Vahey, [email protected]
• Governor: Ned Lamont:
Office of Governor Ned Lamont
State Capitol
210 Capitol Avenue
Hartford, CT 06106
Thank you,
District 7 Representative Town Meeting Members Wynn McDaniel, Chair, Henry Orphys, Vice-Chair, Debbie Appelbaum, Secretary Kim Blank, Ellen Brennan-Galvin, Nanette Burrows, Tom Cahill, Alice Duff, Betsy Galindo, Bill Galvin, Hilary Gunn, Lucia Jansen, Scott Kalb, Marina Rosin Levine, Beth MacGillivray, Anthony Moor, Doreen Pearson, Tara Restieri, Valerie Stauffer, Luke Szymczak