What’s Bridgeport’s neighborhood to the east, the town of Stratford, doing about the affordable housing crisis? A stark pattern of discrimination is getting in the way.
As the cost of housing rentals rise creating hardships and overcrowding at Connecticut’s homeless shelters, the town of Stratford is among many communities lagging behind the state’s objective to designate 10 percent housing units as affordable in all municipalities.
According to the Department of Housing statistics Stratford, and its population of roughly 52,000, comes in at about six percent as a means measured against all housing units. To compare, Bridgeport, Connecticut’s most populous community, is 20 percent affordable, according to state housing statistics.
A proposal before Stratford zoning officials for the North End, a community that has been particularly averse to inclusionary housing starts, seeks an application to permit a 60-unit apartment building, set on nearly one acre, with parking underneath that includes 18 units designed as affordable on Oronoque Lane. The rest will be market rate to offset the lower-level rentals.
The plan calls for nine one-bedroom units, one two-bedroom units and two studios on each floor with five floors above the parking garage.
The Oronoque Ridge development proposal is sandwiched by James Farm Road and Main Street, accessible to Sikorsky Aircraft, healthcare facilities, private golf course and other amenities.
A public hearing on the plan took place Wednesday night before town zoners in a jam-packed town council chambers loaded with elderly White North End neighbors opposed to the proposal. Developers including Mark Genest seek a RS-1 zoning district change to Oronoque Affordable Housing District.
The proposal provides Stratford town employees prioritization during the housing application period. Many public safety and education workers would qualify to apply under the affordable housing salary guidelines.
What’s wrong with housing accessible to public safety workers, health care providers and teachers? Wouldn’t you want them to reside in the communities they serve? This work-force narrative is starting to gain traction against the tide of exclusionary housing decisions.
The monthly median rent in Stratford, $1,554, is almost $200 higher than the state average, according to the town profile on Stratford’s municipal website.
The five-member zoning commission took no formal action Wednesday night, continuing the application for a future meeting.
The term “affordable” is certainly relative. For those suffering myopia it conjures up scary, crime-ridden high rises, no longer being built, and not the inclusionary mixed income units proposed contemporarily.
Connecticut general statutes requires 15 percent of development units be affordable for 40 years to families earning 80 percent or less of the medium income for the area or the state medium income, whichever is less and 15 percent of the units must be affordable to those earning 60 percent or less of either the area or state medium income, which ever is less.
In recent years state officials have wrestled with a carrot or stick approach to realize the 10 percent goal that was passed into law in 1989 but has languished well behind the original expectations for “affordable housing” two words that have been soiled by nimby apposition to multi-housing developments particularly in White neighborhoods.
In addition, state law requires cities and towns every five years to submit affordable housing plans to “specify how the municipality intends to increase the number of affordable housing developments in the municipality.”
Erin Boggs, executive director of housing advocacy group Open Communities Alliance, said the law “has been effective in starting conversations in towns about the need for more affordable housing” — but hasn’t accomplished much more than that. It doesn’t come anywhere close to meaningfully helping the state address its severe affordable housing crisis,” Boggs said.
Stratford, the past decade has experienced a demographic shift from a largely White population. The town, according to the latest 2020 Census findings, is now made up of minority groups totaling 25 percent of the population, a number that has likely climbed the past five years based on demographic trends.
Housing development proposals that have been embraced or rejected by Stratford zoning officials show a pattern of objection in the predominately White North End neighborhood while more acceptable to mixed demographics in the South End, creating a community disparity.
Affordable housing belongs near the commercial districts of the South End, where the jobs exist is the common trojan horse rationale among Stratford’s nimby residents and protective town officials. Oddly, however, Stratford’s largest employer by far, Sikorsky Aircraft, sprawls along Main Street in the North End.
Racism, classism, exclusionary roadblocks, especially for Hispanic and Black families, have raised a number of issues for housing advocates who fear that people invested in the community such as police, fire, education and healthcare workers are either priced out of the town or victimized by housing shortages.
In addition, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong recently joined the U.S. Justice Department and nine other states filing an amended complaint in its antitrust lawsuit against mega housing developers, some that do business in Connecticut such as Greystar, Pinnacle and Willow Bridge, for participating in algorithmic pricing schemes that harms renters.
“I don’t have to tell anyone— rent is completely unaffordable and out of control right now. We are alleging today that some of the nation’s largest landlords—including three operating in Connecticut—rigged the market using unfair algorithmic pricing to suppress competition and jack up costs for millions of renters. Today’s amended complaint represents a major expansion of our initial complaint against RealPage. We’re going to follow the facts where they lead, and won’t hesitate to use the full extent of our joint state and federal enforcement authority to give American families a fair chance at an affordable home.”
What’s the future of the Oronoque housing proposal?
Probably a long shot for zoning approval, based on Stratford’s past practice. But, zoners must rationalize that the development provides more harm than good to reject, according to state law, a message delivered to the commission by land use attorney Steve Bellis who pitched the proposal on behalf of the developer Wednesday night.
So this thing may end up in court.
Meanwhile, Stratford’s exclusionary zoning policies wrestles with approving units to be 10 percent compliant.
OIB: Who actually researched and penned the above article? Was it published in the Post or the Mirror? What is the audience for such a report and where do those folks reside at a time when Fair Housing Commission prospects ever coming to life again in Bridgeport is obscure, at best? Time will tell.
JML, I researched and wrote it. Also, I attended the Stratford zoning hearing. I wrote the piece to frame an example about what one of Bridgeport’s neighbors is doing to share the responsibility for creating affordable housing. I always identify the media source if it’s coming from someplace else. In this case, it’s my story solely.