CT 169 Strong will be hosting a rally at the Old Greenwich Train Station in Old Greenwich on Friday, April 8 from 4:00pm. to 5:00pm. The address is 1 Sound Beach Avenue. The group will be rallying against several zoning bills under consideration by the General Assembly that would remove local authority of our local planning and zoning commissions.
Several elected officials will attend, including State Senator Ryan Fazio (R-36), State Senator Tony Hwang (R-28) representing Easton, Fairfield, Newtown, Weston, and State Rep Kimberly Fiorello (R-149) representing parts of Greenwich and North Stamford, will be speaking.
Among the bills:
TOD (HB 5429) is a bill that would enable dense, ‘as of right’ development within a ½ mile of train and transit centers, and it doesn’t take into account historical areas or open space preservation. The TOD bill did not come out of committee, but it can be inserted into a placeholder bill or can be attached to an omnibus bill during session.
Fair Share (HB 5204): If passed, this bill would create a formula (which hasn’t been determined yet) which would mandate expansion of affordable housing in towns that are deemed not to have enough, and could increase the current Affordable Housing law (8-30g)’s target of10% of total housing stock to be as high as 20%. This could require large increases in density to achieve the as-yet-undetermined new objective.
According to a flyer for the event, state legislators have proposed one-size-fits-all zoning mandates aimed at flooding downtowns and 1/2 mile of transit stations with “As of Right” high density market rate residential apartments for developments. They say say the state mandates aim to override local zoning rules, remove public hearings and the ability of towns and cities to control permanent land use decisions.
According to the CT 169 Strong mission, there are three groups who benefit from zoning that overrides local zoning control: “opportunistic politicians…who divert attention away from their inability to be effective in their own capacities, political activists with “flawed simplistic thinking” and “misleading statistics” who “build up their resumes at the expense of our futures in our towns and cities,” and predatory builders “Who would get massive as-of-right building access to our towns and cities…”