What to know about the CT housing bill passed in special session

The House and Senate approved a wide-ranging housing bill earlier this month to replace a similar bill that Gov. Ned Lamont vetoed after the regular session.

House Bill 8002 requires towns to create housing growth plans, changes minimum off-street parking requirements, expands fair rent commissions and incentivizes towns to take steps to allow more housing, among other measures.

Its goal is to make it easier to build more housing in Connecticut. Housing costs have gotten more expensive and homelessness has risen over the past several years. Experts say there hasn’t been enough housing built in Connecticut to meet the need, which has made these and other issues worse.

Lamont is expected to sign the new bill, which he helped negotiate with local leadership. Here’s a breakdown of the housing legislation passed in the recent special session.

Why was there a special session?

During the regular session, the legislature passed a sweeping housing bill known as House Bill 5002, but Lamont vetoed the measure after facing opposition from local leaders. He said he wanted to find a way to get them on board with the measure.

After months of working on a new version of the bill, Lamont called the legislature into special session for two days. The House met Wednesday, Nov. 12, and the Senate met the following day. They passed the housing bill in addition to three other bills.

Lamont has touted the new bill because local leaders, who broadly opposed the old bill, have signed on. A bipartisan group of mayors and first selectmen spoke at a press conference in support of the new bill.

Democrats said they wanted to get a bill passed to meet the need for more housing as soon as possible, while Republicans criticized the special session, saying the bill should have been brought in regular session when the public could read it and comment.

What will change in my town’s zoning?

Some of that isn’t clear yet and is up to your town. The bill requires towns to create housing growth plans, with goals on how many units they’ll plan and zone for.

If towns create these plans or take certain steps to add more housing near train and bus stations or in downtowns, they’ll have access to a new state fund and can get more state reimbursement for what they spend on school construction.

The bill also says that towns can’t require developers who build new apartments with fewer than 16 units to add off-street parking, with a couple of exceptions.

Democrats and housing advocates say these measures will help push towns to build more housing because a lot of local zoning makes it hard to build apartments. Republicans fear it will reduce local control.

What else is in the bill?

This is a big bill that deals with a lot of different issues. It expands the number of fair rent commissions, which is a government body that can hear complaints about rent increases and make decisions on whether to change that rental increase number.

It bans “hostile architecture,” or the use of things like armrests in the middle of benches or spikes to make it harder for people experiencing homelessness to lie down.

It also establishes the Connecticut Department of Housing as a statewide housing authority, which means they can work with towns to build more housing and build on state land.

How is this different from the old bill?

This bill has a lot of similarities to the old bill. Many Democrats who worked on the bill said the majority has stayed the same; it’s mostly the zoning portions that have changed.

One difference is the creation of the state fund to encourage towns to participate in the programs to increase housing density near public transit and in downtowns. The former bill had measures that would have prioritized certain existing infrastructure funding for towns that decided to make certain zoning changes.

It also eliminates a process known as “fair share” that assigned each town a specific number of units to plan and zone for. Instead, regional councils of government will figure out how many units each town needs to plan for. Towns can either participate in the plans from the COGs or create their own plans and their own goals.