The Planning and Development Committee voted several bills out of committee Friday, including one that has been dubbed the “Work Live Ride” bill regarding transit-oriented development that could have an impact on the future of housing in the state.
The work-live-ride legislation, House Bill 5390, contains several provisions regarding affordable housing in the state including one that would provide financial incentives to municipalities that implement transit-oriented development (TOD) policies. Specifically, towns and cities that pass zoning for TODs would be prioritized for funding under a number of bills and discretionary funds.
Of the 169 towns in the state, 111 currently have some form of public transit. Those towns would be eligible for funding under the bill. About 50 municipalities either have already created a transit-oriented district, or have a plan to do so.
Rep. Eleni Kavros Degraw, D-Avon, said in a phone interview Friday that she feels good about where the bill is at, and that it has been polished and worked on for years leading up to this session. Getting new kinds of housing built for a growing population, she said, is a priority.
“All of these ideas are great, but if we don’t actually get housing built in the next few years, we are putting Connecticut at a big disadvantage,” she said.
Kavros Degraw said the bill is a great example of what happens when an idea evolves over time. Still, there are some concerns within the committee about some of the demands that the bill could place on smaller towns.
Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, said during the meeting that he believes there is common ground to be shared on the bill, and that he thinks those on both sides of the aisle can agree that the best results are achieved when municipalities are left to govern themselves.
Fazio said he had general concerns about the bill, saying that he views it as “over prescriptive” as to what it recommends to towns. The bill, he said, does not account for the different types of transit that exist within towns of different size and structure.
In order to qualify as a “transit-oriented community,” a municipality would need to pass zoning for units that are classified as transit-oriented developments in order to be prioritized
Fazio said the bill should promote more middle housing, which he believes would be more “palatable,” in reference to the work-live-ride bill that could eventually become a big source of new resources for the state’s municipalities.
Fazio said that prioritizing or deprioritizing hundreds of millions of dollars in discretionary funding from communities, based on whether they allow the right kinds of development in their communities around train or bus stations, “is a bridge too far for many in this committee.”
Kavros Degraw said she does not find the bill to be overly prescriptive, and that whether towns participate in developing transit-oriented housing is up to them. She also said she thinks there are a lot of towns that probably won’t participate, and that there are a lot of towns that “don’t want to build anything.”
She added, “When you keep moving the goalposts it just starts to seem like you don’t want to build anything.”
Towns that do not currently have zoning plans or districts put in place can still gain eligibility to discretionary funding if they decide to change their plans, Kavros Degraw said of the legislation.
Pete Harrison, director of Desegregate CT – which advocates for housing reform in the state, and had a hand in the HB 5390 – said in a phone interview that the towns that already have transit-oriented districts in place will be grandfathered into the program, should the bill be passed.
Harrison said he doesn’t think that funding sources will be overwhelmed by a sudden influx of towns looking for access to state discretionary funds. The change, he said, will happen incrementally.
There are several other housing bills coming up at the committee’s meeting next week. Kavros Degraw said that she did not know if all of the bills pertaining to housing would end up on the same omnibus bill.
