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This week on the wheelhouse.

And affordable housing.

Vito.

If there's a will.

If there's a way to overcome a legislative deadlock.

In.

Four Connecticut public.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

This is the wheelhouse.

It's the show that connects politics to the people.

We got your weekly dose of politics in Connecticut and beyond right here.

Lawmakers thought that they had a deal that would get local municipalities to commit to more affordabl housing for low income earners.

Even though legislation was passed in May, the governor vetoed the proposal in June, or the bill is likely to come back in a special session.

At least it'll be talked about there.

This hour, we'll talk to a sponsor and we'll talk to an opponent of the original legislation about where things stand on affordable housing in Connecticut.

Joining me first, very excited to have him.

We sort of match this morning Jason Rojas a Democrat.

The majority leader of the Connecticut House of Representatives.

Good morning.

Good morning, Frank, and thanks for having me back on.

So happy to have you on here.

If folks, if you have a comment for the Hous majority leader in Connecticut related to affordable housing.

Give us a call.

Maybe we can sneak in your special session questions really quickly.

You just got to make sure you give us a call now.

88872096778887209677.

Two weeks ag we had the governor on the show.

We asked him about the veto and what precipitated it.

Here's what he said.

That's the cli we have of Governor Ned Lamont.

I'm not sure if we were able to play it for you, but essentially he says that our team is there at each of these meetings as they weigh in on this.

I didn't get as focused on this as I could have.

I knew it was town's take the lead again.

This is Governor Ned Lamont.

I'm quoting him here.

I had to get in the details a little bit to make sur there was some ambiguity there.

That was really scaring the hell out of our local lawmakers and first selectman.

He's saying that he was making sure the ambiguity was addressed.

How do you respond to that?

Did you keep the governor and his team apprized of, this particular provision in the bill?

Yeah.

I mean, the way the process works, running a legislative session is the governor's office is very involved in almost every bill that we're considering.

Right?

Obviously, at the end of the day, the governor has to sign a bill before it becomes law.

Therefore, he and his team want to make sure that it's vetted and it meets their priorities and makes sense from a state budgetary perspective.

So, yeah, he was actively working with, members of his team in his office on the housing bill over the course of the legislative session, right up until the very end.

You know, we generally don't run bills unless we get a kind of a sign off.

That is on that's going to pass the Senate and that too, it's going to be signed by the governor.

The votes are important which is why you all had a veto override session that only lasted four minutes the other day.

He didn't have the votes to to override a veto.

You all know generally what you all are going to do.

I would say when the session ended last month, the governor originally said he'd signed the bill, right.

But then he reversed course, ultimately vetoing the bill.

Did he let you know about the veto?

I we suspected that it was coming.

Certainly.

We were having lots of conversations up until he made the decision.

And he was certainly expressing some reservations that he had his talking about listening to people, whic I think is always a good thing.

And it's just part of his style, to listen to people.

So we were awar that the veto was coming.

Yes.

The comments we just played about ambiguity in the bill's language.

Him questioning whether towns take the lead, actually happening in the bill even called the proposal at one point kind of dumb.

Yeah.

Help us with this.

Wit his interpretation of the bill.

Are you actually telling towns what to do here?

And if you are, why would you tell them what?

Yeah, I didn't mean.

You know I've said this in my, statement after the veto to suggest that it was dumb.

It was dumb politically perhaps to include it in there.

And that's really what this is about.

It's not about ambiguity.

It's about accountability.

And there are simply town across the state of Connecticut that don't want to be accountable for allowing housing of any kind, not just affordable housing, but housing.

Period, right, to be developed in their community.

So the dumb part that was it was insulting, to have it be framed that way.

But I'm one that's quick to move on and try to get to to a final outcome.

And that's what really this was about, right?

It was about actually trying to give more information to towns and cities so that they could use that information to inform affordable housing plans, which they were required to do under the law.

You know, we got the first tranche of these affordable housing plans two years ago.

Half of them were of decent quality.

The other half didn't seem like anybody really made a real attemp to actually put a plan together, which I speaks, which I think speaks to the lack of focus, and the lack of sassier interest in actually addressing this issue.

Those comments or the veto after all of this, do you still remain committed to trying to get this done?

Of course.

Yeah.

And I think the governor does too.

Right.

He's made that clear in his own public statements.

He's made that clear to me directly.

I really appreciate, his commitment to trying to get to a final solution.

And we've actually been meeting we've exchanged language with each other, and we're actively having that conversation with both the Senate, the House and the governor's office.

Okay, we got to we got to dive into it.

We can't dive in too much into the language, I can imagine, but I'm hoping to understand the proposal.

So it's good to hear that he's working with you.

He says that he wants to work with Bob Duff as well, from the state Senate side.

And then the lawmakers.

Excuse me, the the municipal lawmakers, these leaders who are the first elect men and women and, of course, as well as your mayors.

So you're saying you're working kind of close?

Let's talk about your colleagues.

Do you think that they're still committed?

Is there a political wil to get this done, do you think?

Yeah.

No.

I mean, listen, I think it was a kind of a watershed moment, to get a bill like this throug both the House and the Senate.

84 votes in the House and 20 in the Senate.

Not an easy thing to do.

I think that was a strong indication that there's a recognition in the legislature that we have to do something about this, and we can't really wait.

And, you know, entertain the usual kind of arguments that we've been getting for a very long time about we can't do acts.

We don't have this we can't control for this.

Those are just excuses, right?

We do have a choice.

We can't control the price of lumber.

We can't control tariffs.

We can't control labor force shortages.

But there are things that we can do on the zoning and regulatory front.

That can be done.

It becomes a question of whether people really want to act on that or not.

What does real change look like on the affordable housing front?

You're coming from a place where you're where you're worried about accountability, and you are hoping, I guess, to push these, municipal lawmakers, a little bit to make sure that you can ultimately construct new affordable housing.

Right.

So I understand you're working on language.

Can you get ther without these so-called targets that, everybody's talking about in the bill, that kind of sign a number of affordable housing units, or at least they say it does.

Yeah.

I mean, of course we can get there.

I think we will end up i the same place that we are now, unless we're really intentional, about addressing in that 100,00 unit number that is out there.

Right.

That is for individual who are at the most vulnerable for housing insecurity or homelessness.

Right.

So when and that's wh I think it was so interesting.

You you left that number out there, the 100 K just to just explai hundred thousand units.

Right.

That was the number that came out of the housing needs assessment.

That was done by Eagle Northwest.

That informed the fair share plan.

And we're talking about people, you know, I mean, that number is 0 to 80% of area median income, right?

So for individuals and families in those income brackets, that's what that 100,000 number reflects that is actually needed to meet that that demand.

That's not dumb, right.

To try to address the housing needs of people in those income spectrums.

Those are low income families, middle income families, low income families.

If you live in Fairfield, right, where it's really difficult to find housing, and then that' what we're really talking about.

And unless we're intentional about actually trying to reach a certain goal we have plans that are really, not really based on anything and that really makes me question whether there's a commitment to actually addressing this issue, which I think most people in Connecticut recognize is a problem.

Everyone realizes they're either paying way too much money in rent or they're paying for houses.

They're getting 600 and $700,000 mortgages for, you know, a 2000 square foot Cape Cape or raised ranch or colonial.

What does that mean for the future of the state of Connecticut?

What does that mean for the future of families in the state of Connecticut?

What does it mean for employers who are trying to get people to move here?

It was just announced early this week.

Electric boat.

They're looking for 6000 more units of housing in the New London area.

How is that going to get built?

Right?

If developers and people who want to build housing have to go through this crazy regulatory, burdensome process of getting things approved, when local land use bodies make it incredibly difficult to do those things, this issu that you're trying to solve for affordable housing in places like New London County in Fairfield County, housing period housing in addition to affordable.

Yeah.

And of course, trying to address income disparities.

How unique is it to what's happening outside of Connecticut?

What is the situatio in New London, Fairfield County, I guess throughout Connecticut as well.

Obviously we're here at Hartford County.

How does this compare to what' happening outside of the state?

You know, there are other states that are making far more progress on individual components of our bill.

Right.

North Carolina House just passed a ban on parking minimums.

Right.

Which is one of the big points of contention in our bill.

They just passed it 107 to nothing.

So that means Democrats and Republicans recognized that parking is a contributor to the cost of housing.

Parking is a contributor to environmental impacts.

And North Carolina House chose to act.

Right.

And here we are in Connecticut, blue State with Democratic majorities, with a Democratic governor.

And we can't make any meaningful progress on reform around housing when we have some of the highest cost of housing in the country.

It's just simply unacceptable up to Maine and unacceptable to a lot of my colleagues, that we would continue to not act more aggressively to address this issue, knowing how long it takes to get housing built, knowing how long it take to get your financing in place.

If we continue to do nothing, this problem will be that much worse ten years from now.

And part of the point that I think that we're trying to illustrate, as we talk about this legislation, when I'm working with our editor, Patrick Scahill, and some of our other colleagues, is that this bill does more than just address affordable housing.

So what are we missing out on?

In addition to the affordable housing sort of targets, if we don't pass this bil or if we don't revive it.

Yeah.

What kind of measures were you looking for?

Parking was a big one, right?

You know, I mean, we've developed over the last 60 or 70 years in our car centric culture.

We all want parking right outside the building.

We all want parkin right outside of the business.

We all want parking right outside the very location we want to go to.

What that results in is a lot of underutilized or mixed use land.

Right?

And we know in Connecticut we have a limited amount of land on which to develop.

When you put parking on it right, that limit your ability to use that for something else, you know, in a better way.

I mean, certainly ha environmental impacts as well.

And depending on what you'r looking at, it costs 30, $40,000 a space.

Right.

And the cost of that parkin gets passed on to the end user, either the renter or the or the owner of a property.

You know, we are lookin at protest petitions right now.

We have a process by which people can come in and object to a residential housing permit application, just because they don't want more housing, maybe they do engag in NIMBYism, not in my backyard type of approaches.

Maybe they have some other motivation.

Right.

But if we're talking about allowing people to do what they want with their private property, again, within limits, we were trying to make changes to that process to so that people weren't interrupting the process.

That is already difficult to execute.

Now we're having people make it more difficult.

There's a significant investment in public housing, right?

If we really want to truly meet the needs of people at the lowest end of the income spectrum, I think we have to come back to thinking about, public housing and utilizing our public housing authority, which are locally controlled, which have land available to them.

How do we get them more resources to actually build housing rather than relying on the kind of what is the status quo, which is working with private developers?

With who I will not vilify.

We need developer to actually build housing now, but we're largely paying a lot, using a lot of public dollars to subsidize the development of market rate housing.

That tends to have a smattering of affordable units in them.

I don't know that that's the best use of limited public dollars.

I'm not saying we have to move away from that completely.

But is that really the most efficient ways to use limited resources to actually effectuate a goal of having to affordable housing?

Probably not.

And it's a difficult thing to do because that' what we've gotten used to doing.

I want to try to end this on an informative note, where we kind of try to carry the conversation forward.

A special session may happen in September, as your understanding.

Is that still the plan?

And what's the likelihood that you could try to revive this bill in the not just try, but actually revive it, in the special session?

Yeah, I know there will be a special session.

Right.

The intention of a September special session was first predicated on, responding to the federal budget.

That was passed, and we're waiting for more information to determine how we're going to react to that.

But I am 100% confident that we're going to have a housing bill to reconsider in September, Jason Rojas, a Democrat, th majority leader in Connecticut's House of Representatives, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for being candid with us this morning.

We appreciate it.

Thanks for having me on and fo keeping the conversation going.

I appreciate you coming on the show.

You just heard from an architect of the recently vetoed affordable housing legislatio in Connecticut after the break here from someone that lobbie for the bill, the Re rejected.

Where do you stand on affordable housing in Connecticut?

Want you to tell us.

Give us a call 88872096778887209677.

More wheelhouse next.

To.

This is the wheelhous from Connecticut Public Radio.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

Legislation aimed at the construction of affordable housing units in Connecticut passed in May.

It was vetoed a month later in the interim.

State Senator Tony Wong advocated for the proposal to be abandoned.

Wang, a Republican lawmaker, joins the wheelhouse now via zoom.

The senator represents Fairfield Easton, a new town in the Connecticut General Assembly.

Good morning.

How are you doing this morning, Senator Wong?

I'm great.

Good morning, and thank yo for having me on the wheelhouse.

I wish I was in studio with you and House Majority Leader Rojas, who was a respected and passionate advocate for housing access.

You could come up here, you could come up here at any time.

I just wanted to be easy on you since you were in Fairfield.

Or in the.

Or at least in Fairfield County.

But you're more than welcome to make the Trek track at any time.

I would love to.

I love listening to you.

Thank you and predecessors before, but but I think it's important to have, perspective.

My personal backgroun is important when we talk about the perspective of housing access and affordability.

For me, as a first generation immigrant arriving in this country around nine parent with no education, no language, my first housing was in federal subsidized housing.

I was a head in upper bound program kid, so I was one of those kids that looked at housing as a critical and fundamental part of of being an immigrant and seeking opportunity, bu also for safety and stability.

So it's really important that that housing in Connecticut is at a crisis mode.

There's an affordability, there's an access, there's a diversity need.

But I think the solutio that is being offered right now and offered in the past is, is short on on really collaboration and real sustainable results.

People need to understand we try to do this as a policymake and in mandating some of these, the policies that are well-intentioned, it's called 830 G section eight Dash 30 G on affordable housing over 30 years ago.

That overrode a lot of the things that we're talking about in local input and etc.

but 830 G over 30 plus years has not solved the problem of our housing crisis.

And the feeling about this whole proces has been about kind of mandate, but also that governmen from Hartford and one size fits all knows better.

And it feels like deja vu all over again.

And this House bill 5002 is not a solution.

You call the legislative power process cloaked in good intentions.

Yeah, you called it a legislative power grab.

Can you explain why you did?

Well, I think it's important for people to understand what began as a single section bill, House Bill 5002, which was a priority for the House leadership, quietly morphed.

It was a ten line page on homelessness that quietly morphed after passin through housing appropriations.

And the Finance Revenue Bonding Committee has a ten line study, said in the House calendar, and quietly morphed into a 47 section on the bus overhaul that had nearly language that that that transform, you know, housing law and policy impacting all aspects and one size fits all without a consensus, a robust debate.

This was a strike all amendmen that replaced the bill entirely without a public hearing or really meaningful conversation scrutiny.

And I think people are going to justify the bill by saying every section of that bill had, quote, a public hearing.

But the bill has a hole with nearly 47 sections, had a one yay or nay vote.

And that is, again, you know, I really believe how we legislate mattered just as much as how we legislate.

And I point that out because for many people that says this is how business is done.

We only poin to how the federal government, we talk a lot about the big, beautiful budge and how it was done by one party mandate that the the Republican on the national side had no conversations with the Democrats.

And this was a bill jammed upon the American people without due process.

And you're sayin the housing bill was in housing bill had very little, if any input, as was mentioned by the House Majority Leader.

Conversations are ongoing.

But I can tell you, as the former chair of co-chai and the tri house chair, Housing and Planning and Development, I've had no conversations.

We've been on the outside looking in.

So again did you as much as we might want to criticize about the federal government, about the Republican one party mandate, control of the big beautiful bill, I think we see that right now in House Bill 5002.

I see you in your party rule.

Sure.

I see you on your on your complaints and how you weren't able to participate in the process.

And I respect that perspective.

Thank you for sharing that.

Were you able to reach out to the governor, or at least to Democrats after the bill was passed?

I know that this, this where you call the op ed, that's what I'm trying to look for.

I'm trying to look for that word today.

When you when you call that a legislative power grab.

I know that's kind of in that interim period, were you able to to reach out and say, hey, can you, can you give us a veto on this bill?

You know what?

Let me be clear.

We do need to do something housing.

And I want to acknowledge Governor Lamont veto.

He's gotten a lot of heat from it, but I think the process was one that that that that he is also addressing his message.

His veto message is important to hear that there is a need for balance.

And he appreciates the legislative accommodations that that included some of his priorities and engagement.

But but people need to understand this isn't a Democrat.

Republican Governor Lamon versus the Democratic majority.

The vote reflected a bipartisan opposition.

Many Democrats voted against this.

In my town of Fairfield, two Democratic state House state representative legislators voted against this bill.

Democratic municipal leaders wrote scathing letters encouraging the governor to veto the message so that the message i the context needs to be phrased, not Democrat Republican housing versus anti housing.

It needs to also look at Hartford and its decisio making and its overriding power of one size fits all, against the wishes and the expertise and insigh of local municipal government.

So when we talk about local control, that that is a phrase that gets used quite a bit tricky, but but it's about incorporating the input and the it's more of a respect thing versus something that's actually mandated in the state constitution.

You're saying one size fits all right.

And that's a struggle.

And I go back 830 G 30 plu years ago was well-intentioned, but it did nothing except create animosity, frustration and challenge, inclusion on local input, local expertise and personal property rights.

Look, people need to understand the state of Connecticut has as a history.

When you look at a kilo versus New London, the eminent domain aspect was state government and the federal government took over private property for the greater good, quote unquote.

But look, people need to go bac to that Kelo property right now.

It is a vacant lot that has that that has done nothing to make improvements.

That was promised.

But, Senator, just taking aside the stand, the challenge.

Sure.

And taking aside your thoughts on 830, Jeanne.

And I know that we could talk about that.

There's going to continu to be a conversation about 830, I would imagine, in the special session, but just help us understand what could be done in terms of actually getting affordable housing units up.

You say that's something you want to do, help us understand what you could do, particularly where you are working in in Fairfield, Newtown, Easton, those kind of communities.

I've offered to the House Majority Leader, I have offered the governor's office.

I think what we need to do and solutions that really work in sustainable needs to be a collaboration that respects the autonomy of local government, that also incorporates state through its funding, through its resources, through its review process, and also with the federal government.

I know for me, in the town of Fairfield the town of Fairfield in the 60s was one of the first towns that that that had a privately funded homeless shelter for the community.

And it also looked at, vacant how, schools and, and opportunities and built federal, state operated housing.

They are all affordable.

The problem with some of the challenges we've seen with 830 G and the fair shar that's being proposed, and 5002 not very many of them are truly affordable.

So I think the key is one of the solutions is we nee to create a collaborative effort Democrat, Republican, municipal, rural, urban to be able to facilitate housing.

And I think, well, what if those municipalities don't want to participate in the housing?

What if the municipalities don't want to participate?

Can we?

You know what I got to share with you?

I live in Fairfield Southwestern community, and there's a lot bandied around about, a lack of motivation and truly, in some cases, a resistance to housing.

I will share with you.

People think a lot abou Greenwich being the Gold Coast.

I will dare anyone to take a look at what the town of Greenwich and the town of Fairfield for me, where I live, have done in regards to trying to address affordable housing.

People need to understand that the blame game is very easy, working together to find solutions where people compromise is what's the difficult we're seeing right now?

And I, I support the governor's sentiment to get back in there and incorporate everybody.

And another big part that that is not discussed in regards to increased density building, frankly, is the environmental concerns in regard to the impact of climate change and and the lack of open space as well as infrastructur capacities that municipalities and taxpayer need to engage in and support.

So a lot of that conversation gets dismissed, put aside, and the burden ultimately falls on municipal leaders and municipal taxpayers.

But the bottom line is we need to find solutions for a problem that exists and that is affordable, accessible, diverse housing.

And 5002 is trul not the solution and one party rule dynamic.

It doesn't work up in the national politics.

It should not work in Connecticut as well.

Last question for you here.

If you say you're supportive of affordable housing like you were talkin about truly affordable housing, so that's deed restricted an ticketed for low income earners.

What, can you do?

What are you doing in those towns?

I was talking about to try to get that done.

You say that I'll give you a great example.

In the town of Westport, which I used to represent, we looked at a property that was owned by the Connecticut Department of Transportation.

It was at a convenient location access to transportation, retail and opportunities for people.

But it was vacant land that the dot used for their infrastructure and and road services.

We approached the Do and the administration to say, give half of that parcel to be able to allow the town of Westport to develop nearl 40 units of entirely affordable housing, with no developers, the town taking the lead, getting the property from the state because land value was expensive, and getting some federal subsidies for it.

And what we're looking a is nearly 40 units that that's completely accessible and would you believe this?

Frankly, the entire community supported it.

The town of Westport, its leadership led on this initiative.

So for me, that is a great example that in land, expensive communities and for communities that want to lead, we need to have the state and the federal government lead, create solutions.

And that was and it was a great idea, great initiative.

It's still taking them three years for all the bureaucracy to make this move.

So ultimately it's an important question.

We need to find solutions instead of just saying no.

But nevertheless there has to be a real, genuine effort to to want to listen to peopl that says this way of mandates and one size fits all does not work.

How can we all work together?

We're not working together right now on this.

This bill and the way that it was one party mandated from the House and the Senate.

And I'm grateful for the governor in this veto says, let's get back and let's all work together to find solutions from Connecticut Public Radio.

This is the wheelhouse.

I'm Frankie Graziano, Senator Tony Wong represents Easton, Fairfield and Newtown as a Republican.

It's great to have you on the show.

Thank you for coming back on the wheelhouse.

Oh, I'd love to come back on next time I'm having you in person.

How about that?

Next time I'll wear the bow tie.

Yes.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate you coming on.

We talked to two lawmakers today.

Up next, we break it all down with our expert panel.

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This is the wheelhous from Connecticut Public Radio.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

This hour we've addressed the affordable housing legislation in Connecticut with a proponent and a critic to help us with where things stand and whether there's a political path forward toward the new construction of truly affordable housing.

Our several of Connecticut's to voices covering housing issues here.

Abigail Brown, my colleague, a housing reporter for Connecticut Public.

Thank you so much for coming on the show, Abby.

Good morning, Frankie, and congratulations to you and Adam Hutcheon on your recent marriage.

You, two of my favorite people got married.

Congratulations to them.

Also with us, Jenny Munk, children's issues and housing reporter for the Connecticut Mirror.

Jenny, thank yo so much for coming on the show.

Thanks for having me.

And Jackie Rabe, Thomas, Jacqueline Rabe Thomas Jackie writes for City insider.com is an investigative reporter.

Thank you for coming on the show this morning.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you for coming on.

A question for our panel.

What about a comment on the state of housing in Connecticut?

Call us before we're off the air.

88872096778 and 87209677.

We heard a lot in the last segment with Tony Wong, who is the state senator out of Fairfield.

And I do want to parse through that eventually.

I just got to start firs with what we were talking about with the House Democrat, Jason Rojas.

Visceral reactions, I would imagine, from him.

But he stayed pretty cool, despite all the questions were asking him and all the things that have been said, even by members of his own party, about his legislation.

What do you make about his reactions to some of the things the governor has said, jacki?

Sure.

You know, I think he has sort of taken in that maybe a big housing bill isn't going to happen in a special session under this administration.

And sort of negotiating with this administration is, going to be a Herculean task to get big things done.

You know, he has said for years you know, incremental progress, painfully incremental, I thin is the goal he regularly gives.

And so I think he's tryin everything he can to make sure it's not painfully incremental in a special session.

Did you get the same sense, Ginni?

Yeah.

And I think the other thing to note about Representative Rojas is that he' sort of perpetually optimistic.

So, you know, he often talks about we're not giving up, we're not stopping.

And that's kind of been hi mantra for the past few years.

I asked him about the veto.

And when Rojas found out that it was going to go down.

I just want to understand wh it's important for us reporters to establish a timeline on when the veto came down.

If any of you wants to take that question.

Yeah, I can take a crack at that.

So I think the important thing to note is that, you know, the way bills get passed and signed by the governor is not as if the legislature passes the bill, passes it to the governor, who reads it for the first time and makes a decision.

Right.

His staff were very involved in crafting this piece of legislation right up until really the day after session when they'd passed the bill.

Members of the press were told that the governor was going to sign the bill.

His staff was telling lawmakers that he was going to sign the bill.

He said it.

Yes.

He said he was going to sign the bill.

And then he did it.

I asked his communications staff just a couple of days before the end of session, and they said, yeah, he's going to sign it.

And then that all of a sudden shifted, which I think was really surpris Abby, you talk to the governor since this all went down.

How has his position sort of evolved?

It's interesting because, when he initially spoke before he gave the veto, what was kind of giving inklings that he wasn't really sure about it.

He was pretty candid, and he was saying, there's red flags in this bill.

There are things I want to see changed.

I wish I was more involved.

Which I think, as Jenny just said, was surprising for a lot of Democrats and people in general.

But since the veto actually happened, he's been pretty tightlipped.

We've asked multiple times, we meaning reporters in general.

What kind of changes specifically he wants to see in the bill, and he really hasn't, given much of an idea of what specific things he wants fixed, or changed.

Initially, he had just said he wants to make sure that towns can take the lead, which is one of his favorite, quotes.

Favorite things to say?

But he doesn't really get into specifics lately.

And and how he wants to do that.

I don't know how to frame this, other than it's got to suck when you come up with a bill that that, people are behind and, assume you're assumin the governor's, behind as well.

And then he says tha it's a dumb proposal like that.

I'm just trying to have that.

Not just because it gets a cute response out of, Representative Rojas, but more for the fact that, like, I'm trying to get us to a point where we understand whether there's political will to get this done.

So does that kind of suc all of the wind out of the room, or knock all of the wind out of the room to to get this done?

I mean, look, you had a lot of legislators who are in suburban districts and are Democrats and voted on a bill with the promise that the governor was going to sign it.

So there I think there' a trust issue going on right now when you talk to some members of the legislature of, why am I voting on vulnerable bills that are just going to get vetoed?

This is making my this is going to mak my reelection really difficult.

And, you know they voted for a bill with the the understanding that they supported it and that they were willin to use their political capital.

And then when it came down to it, the governor didn' use his political capital on it or didn't get around to figuring ou if he was willing to until after they had voted.

And I think that erodes a lot of trust.

Speaking with us now on the phone will be Catherine from Middletown.

Catherine thank you so much for giving us a call this mornin and calling into (888)720-9677.

Your question regarding affordable housing.

Good morning Catherine.

Hello.

How are you, Francie?

I'm doing well.

How about you?

I'm well.

And I really appreciate your show, I think, oh.

Thank you.

Catherine, more than ever.

Go ahead and tell us about affordable housing.

Well, I have lived in Easton.

I've lived in Middletown, so I'm quite familiar with this state.

My question is how significant is racism and classism in this?

In this issue?

Can I have Abby Brown take the first stab at this just because, you recently profiled and then and then anybody else could take it from there, but you recently profiled that many of the people who at least that make decisions about planning and zoning are white men.

Yeah.

There was a study that was done, by the centers for housing Opportunity in Connecticut.

They profiled all of the land use board members.

So that's planning and Zoning Commission, zoning appeal boards.

In Fairfield Count and New London County and found that, surprisingly, the numbers are pretty consistent, across both of those counties.

And that almos all the people on these boards are older, average 60s white men who own their homes.

Which is not quit representative of the population of these areas.

It's actually majority women.

In both of those counties.

And of course, it's not just white men.

So I think that, as Rojas mentioned earlier, NIMBYism does come into play.

To a degree.

And I think that just trying to increase the diversity starts at a local level, as exhibited by this, this stud that it's about getting people involve on the regular day to day basis rather than just in the capital.

And it's predominant i Fairfield, in New London County.

This the study found in particular.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So they studied just those tw counties for, for this report.

And it was in the 90s, 90%, white men.

When the population is largely, it's still it is largely majority homeowners in these areas, but not not to the degree that the study found people on the board or homeowners.

There's there are very few renters.

And so that's it's hard to to see that these people are making the decisions of what housin is getting built, particularly in our larger cities, which fall into, Fairfield County when they aren't the ones that are needing this housing, typically, that I'm so appreciative of.

Kathryn, your question.

Thank you so much for calling Kathryn from Middletown this morning, asking about racism.

And that's kind of where we are today at least.

Were these, planning and zoning make up the board?

The makeup of these boards are but I think just to button this question up, we need a little bit of a history lesson.

Just help us understand.

Jackie, Abby, Ginny whoever wants to take this one, why racism is so key to this conversation is i does it start with beach access?

And how many people of colo Jewish people weren't allowed to to to have a home near the beach, and it ultimately kept people in the cities.

Where do we go with this conversation?

Just to help understand how racism and I guess, poverty kind of framed this conversation.

Yeah.

I think, yo know, you have to keep in mind sort of the origins of many local zoning decisions and policies, not just in Connecticut but acros the U.S., were made explicitly, to keep people of color out of certain neighborhoods.

And, you know, I think history is important to these conversations.

I think if you look at I think a lot of listeners might be familiar with the term redlining, and that term essentially is where, certain folks could purchase homes and what type of, homes people could afford in certain neighborhoods.

And essentially it's segregated our country.

And several fashions in addition to some intentional segregation, efforts that Jennie was just talking about.

And so redlining, of access to homeownership in certain communities was just off the table for years.

Historically.

And I think the new version of redlining, I think, could be argued as zoning is the new redlining of where which neighborhoods are able to build a duplex, turn a single family home into a two family home, which is just inherently cheaper.

If two families are able to live on one propert versus one just really quickly.

I know you could do this.

I'm just asking just so that somebody can go here and see it in our backyard here in Hartford.

Where can I go?

What street can I go to t understand where redlining is?

Where?

Where's a good place to send somebody if they want to kind of see thi concrete example of redlining?

It doesn't have to be in Hartford, but just help us understand, like one place somebody could go to an be like, okay, I get this now.

So actually there's a historic Supreme Court decision here in Connecticut that happened just down the street about two blocks from here.

I'm spacing on the name boat right off of Asylum Avenue there.

There was a challeng in the Connecticut Supreme Court about redlining and where intentional housing was being built, with, with the largest portion of low income housing tax credits, which is essentially a big pot of money for affordable housing to be built.

And it kept being built in this one neighborhood a few blocks away from here.

And there was a challenge, at the Supreme Court, the civil rights attorneys ultimately lost that case.

But, you know, two blocks away, you can see it here.

The giant elephant in the room in this conversation is the role of first elected people and mayors.

Many of whom are actively trying to bui efforts to have affordable housing construction in their towns, or at least, maybe they really don't like 830 G. That conversation kind o happened with, Tony Wong there.

He's he's really his argument really is about 830 G. It sounds like.

And obviously saying that, Republicans might not have as much say in this versus not against being against affordable housing, but the governor says he wants t work with them to get this done.

Genie.

He even says he wants them to take the lead on it.

But if some lawmakers want to prod municipal leaders with a proverbial stick, is that why they want to do that, rather than kind of offer them a nice carrot?

Yeah, I think the carrot and stick conversation is sort of complicated, because I think if you asked most folks who are in favor of 5002, the bil that was passed and then vetoed, they would say this, these are carrots, these are largely carrots.

Sort of the the fair share measure that I think Jason Rojas talked about was, you know, there were no enforcement mechanisms to force towns to do that.

So I think it's kind of complicated t what's the carrot in that case?

What is it?

Is it that you'll have a pile of money to access?

Yeah.

So there was a pile of money to access for towns that, implemented more transit oriented development, building more near train and bus stations.

There actually also were pathways to make it easier for towns to achieve a Dash 30 G moratoriums, which the senator spoke about of it.

When we talked to Republican lawmaker Tony Wong, he's talking about having, a situation where you do have more truly affordable housing.

He's talking about this complex, in a CDot yard, in in Westport.

Are people like Tony, doing what they can to get affordable housing?

Maybe not.

That's not the question.

Maybe it's more of, he says that towns lik Greenwich, Fairfield, Westport, they actually want to do affordable housing more than you think they do.

Jackie, what do you think?

Do they do they actually want that or are they actually doing it?

I guess is a better question.

I think the data shows otherwise.

He mentioned Greenwich.

If you look at the percentage of their affordable housing ten years ago compared to now, it's it's hovered at 6%.

He mentioned Fairfield, it's hovered at 3% of their housing stock is reserved for low income individual.

The governor regularly points to Wilton.

It's hovered at 3% of their housing stock is reserved for low income individuals.

So I think the data just doesn't pan out on these anecdotes.

One of anecdotes that they might have.

But it doesn't talk abou some of the affordable housing that's gone off line in those communities that are no longer affordable.

Which kind of gets to Representative Rose's point about the the value of public housing.

Those don't necessarily go to stock offline, versus these other developments that are going offline.

So, with the still needing renovations and improvements over the years.

Absolutely.

But, I think it doesn't tell quite the full story.

You said Wilton, and that's important because the governor, when I talked to him a couple of weeks ago, said, hey, look at Wilton and what they're doing.

He said, that's a town that's putting up more affordable housing than anybody else in the state.

He said it on a per capita basis.

I don't know if that qualifies it more, but was that a helpfu anecdote for him to draw from?

If he's talking about th affordable housing conversation, are they a good actor?

I guess, again, their history is they have 250 units over the last ten years.

They have not blemished.

They they have a few, they have several units that are being developed right now.

My understanding is that's 10% set aside for low income individuals.

So while housing density is a good thing and there will be more housing in Wilton and there's more permits being issued there, those that are reserved for extremely low income individuals are pretty much non-existent.

The units that are being reserved for there are for up to 80% Ami, which is, you know, for for someone who is a single person, that's $80,000 a year, that's not your minimum wage workers that's your young professionals, who are getting access to those.

Jenny, are you seeing examples where there is affordable housing being put up, truly affordable housing?

So that's that's where th the kind of rub is here is that there's a lot of talk about transit oriented development.

You said something about, Jackie, about housing that's no longer affordable.

Could that happen in the case where you put this transit oriented development where it becomes too expensive because it's in some hot city unit where, I don't know a better way to say that, where young cats are going to kind of liv and it just gets more expensive.

So to Jackie's point, it sort of depends on how it's built and funded.

Housing, built and managed by housing authorities, stay affordable for the length of how long it exists.

There are other major funding source through the federal government that have 3040 year expiration dates.

The governor says that he's doubled down, the state's investments in housing.

I talked to him about that a couple of weeks ago.

Is that true?

And is that relevant to th affordable housing conversation?

It's kind of an open question.

I would say that I would say yes and no.

And there has been an increase in the number of affordable units coming online.

And the amount of state funding being put into them.

But, there's a lot of credit, I think, being taken at times by state officials that have minimal to d with the actual construction or, as was kind of just mentioned, the level of affordability matters.

People like to tout developers or officials like to tout, oh, this new development has X number of units that are affordable.

And it's, you know, hundreds of units total and a small fraction that are affordable.

And they're affordable for people who earn, like I said, $80,000 Jackie 30s or less.

To do this, you have the actual numbers.

You and Alex have been looked at at the state funded any state aid, amount going into affordable housing units opening is at a 13 year low.

It's declined every single year during this administration, only 500, about 500 new units are being opened every year that are receiving state aid.

There's so much I wanted to get to on the show that you can hear the music we're not going to be able to get to.

But Jenn Monk, recently went to Singapore and I understand that that will be in one of your, housing newsletters that you have.

Yeah, it was in a recent housing in her home state.

Oh, Saint newsletter.

So subscribe to that and go to CT mirror.org to see her reporting.

That's Jenny Monk.

You can also go to Cit insider.com to find Jackie Rabe Thomas work and CT public to find Abigail Brown's work.

Thank you so much for your work, guys.

I'm sorry that we ran out of time.

Want to talk about all this more?

Nonetheless, that's it for this week.

The wheelhouse is produced by Chloe Wynn.

The show was edited by Patrick Scahill.

Our technical producer is Dylan Reyes.

A special thanks to test terrible Megan Fitzgerald, Connecticut Public Visuals, and our operations teams.

Download The Wheelhouse anytime on your favorite podcast app.

I'm Frankie Graziano, this is the wheelhouse.

Thank you for listening.