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PINE PLAINS — Affordable Housing Task Force Chairman Jack McQuade made a presentation to the Town Board at its monthly meeting on Thursday, Feb. 16, to discuss the issue of “fee in lieu of,” an important concept to how Pine Plains may ultimately structure its affordable housing bylaws.“We’ve been trying to determine the ‘fee in lieu of’ issues as part of the affordable housing section of the new zoning law,” McQuade said. He used Monopoly game pieces and money to illustrate different scenarios of how the strategy could work.One example was laid out with a 10-unit subdivision, which would be required to have 10 percent affordable housing, meaning one unit would fall within that requirement. Therefore, there would be 11 homes, one of which would qualify as affordable.“With the ‘fee in lieu of’ it became very complicated, and we’ve been grappling with it for the past year,” McQuade said. “The way we’ve been interpreting it is that if the developer had a 10-unit subdivision and was required to provide affordable housing under the law, he could pay a ‘fee in lieu of’ [building the affordable housing] and then it would be the town’s responsibility to take that fee and use it somehow to develop affordable housing.”But there is an issue with the Task Force’s interpretation.“The contention was that the way we were reading it was even with the fee used by the developer he would still get a bonus unit,” McQuade said. “It was my feeling that a bonus should be a reward for doing more, not less, and that the way we saw it was if a fee was used there would be no bonus units. And so that’s what we’ve been going back and forth with planners and the town attorney over, to try to come to a consensus about how the law is written and what it means and how it fits in with our feelings.”The sentiment was shared by all members of the Task Force, according to its chair. Town Board members did not act on the issue at the Feb. 16 meeting or make their opinions publicly known. In fact, McQuade will have to return to give a formal presentation to the board and make recommendations on how to draft an affordable housing law for the town.“We’re waiting for the planners to supply us with the fee schedule and that’s being worked on,” McQuade said, adding that’s the next step in the process. He also said the Task Force will be meeting with Attorney to the Town Warren Replansky next week, to make it clear how the group feels about the bonus issue as well as to get feedback from Replansky on the matter.Tackling a complex issueWhile McQuade made the presentation to the Town Board last week, some members of the public rose from their chairs and approached the board table to witness the action taking place with the Monopoly pieces. It was the second time McQuade used the game pieces to make his point. In October of last year he did so for the previous Town Board; he said he thought it would be beneficial to do the same for the newly elected board members who took office at the start of the New Year.“I hope it helped,” he said. “It’s been a very complicated issue and we’ve been grappling with it for a long time. For the new board members I just hope it made them see things a little more clearly.”One of the most difficult ideas to express when dealing with the subject of affordable housing, according to McQuade, is that there are different methods of achieving affordable housing — the fee in lieu of is just one of those methods. It is up to the discretion of the Town Board whether it wants to accept the fee; the board can also tell the developer to build the units or not.“With the fees it’s a little complicated, because the fee is not what the whole affordable housing should cost, it’s just the difference between what it would cost to build an affordable house and what an eligible family would pay — the restricted sales price — and the difference between what the cost to build is and the restricted sales price would be,” McQuade said. “And the town would be getting the fee.”He added the town can hire nonprofit housing companies that have experience in creating affordable housing and would take the fee money and develop the project from start to finish. As the Task Force moves forward it will consider its options of working with consultants, planners and possibly with nonprofit developers. The ultimate goal is to see that affordable housing is built.Workforce housingMeanwhile, McQuade said there was one last point he wanted to stress: The town is pursuing affordable, workforce housing — not low-income housing (often called Section 8 housing).“We’ve had some comments from our survey [last year] where residents were uncomfortable thinking that we were trying to promote Section 8 housing and that it was going to ruin our town. That’s not what we’re talking about,” he said. “It’s medium-income housing, not low-income housing.“We want to find housing for EMTs, teachers, nurses and others in the workforce in our community,” the chairman added. “This is for people that we depend on so much, but who can’t afford to live here. It’s workforce housing that we’re trying to develop.”
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Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.