- [Narrator] Funding provided by Bank of America, The Melville Charitable Trust, and Connecticut Green Bank.

(soft music) - Connecticut is an expensive place to live but it's also one of the most unequal States in the country.

Our towns and cities are segregated by income and by race with staggering disparities, just a few miles apart.

Tonight we talk about the lack of affordable housing in our state and how this is a driving factor behind the separation of our state into two Connecticuts.

One that is whiter and flush with resources and opportunity.

The other is poorer, predominantly communities of color with residents and resource starved neighborhoods who can't afford to live anywhere else.

For Connecticut Public I'm Lucy Nalpathanchil.

And this is "Cutline."

Housing is a basic necessity.

This has been underscored in the pandemic when public health experts told us to stay at home to stay safe.

Many of us had to shift to remote work and school children had to adapt to learning at home using a tablet or laptop, or even a cell phone for virtual school.

Where we live, shapes almost every part of our lives, from the community of neighbors we belong to, to the school districts our children attend.

The ZIP code they grow up in can radically shape their future.

Tonight, we'll learn about the policies that played a big part, in how our State became segregated and we'll visit parts of Connecticut to see what affordable housing looks like, in different types of communities.

Owning a home is part of the American dream.

Connecticut resident, Calvin Harris, and his wife Lindsay bought a starter home about a decade ago in Manchester.

When their careers expanded, they expanded their living space too, for them and their son.

I met Calvin in Manchester, outside what he calls his forever home.

- The yard allows it to like for you to entertain which is something that we've really, really wanted to do is, we like to have family friends over.

We like to have barbecues, small parties.

- Nice deck.

- Yeah.

And so what we wanna do is we're looking to expand this whole deck out and then down and put the pool.

- Calvin never thought about living in Manchester until he got an internship in town after college.

He grew up in public housing in Willimantic.

- I come from a single mother of three boys and we struggled.

I mean, and sorry if I get emotional about it.

But, I grew up in a shelter.

I've been evicted from homes.

So we live poverty.

Like it was bad.

There were where times I go to my friend's house and their mothers would ask me to like shake my sheets out just because, we live with bugs and stuff, but I was a happy kid, although poor, we were happy.

And so I feel we'll manage, it's just a smaller Manchester.

Where I grew up in Willimantic.

as I compare it to Squire Village it was called Windham Heights in Willimantic.

For me I felt like I learned so much growing up that way, that now I appreciate life in general.

- Calvin says he wants to grow old here but he still has fond memories of his first home.

He invited us to see it a short drive away.

- So now we're at my first mine and Lindsay's first home, 110 Lyness Street.

We were pregnant and we were living in Willimantic, got to a point where, Lindsay was living at my mom's.

She said to me, she said, "We need to get a new home."

And I said, all right, let me jump on this.

Looking at the house again, it checked off all the marks for our first home.

And we had some really good years in here.

I think we were here for about five years.

- Last question for you.

When we think about how policy makers are looking at this issue, thinking about those children whether they're in Willimantic or Hartford or Bridgeport and their future, what do you wanna hear from State lawmakers?

When we talk about housing equity?

- I don't wanna hear excuses.

I mean, every child should be afforded a place where they can rest their head and it should be in a home.

And that home could be, it could be an apartment.

It could be in, assisted living where, you're not making as much money as you want, but I feel like every child and for policy makers, when they're having the discussion, make it work, we can make this work.

- Calvin Harris's story is just one example of a Connecticut resident who's found the right community to raise his family.

But not everyone in Connecticut has that opportunity.

Jacqueline Rabe Thomas is a reporter for the Connecticut Mirror.

Who's covered housing for several years.

She's reported on the many barriers that exist for families and individuals looking for affordable, safe places to live, barriers that have left our state segregated.

Now, when we talk about Connecticut being segregated I think when people think of segregation, they think of Jim Crow South.

But can you talk about how our state is segregated?

- Sure, so, there's several ways that a State can be segregated.

There's intentional explicit racist actions.

So when you think of Jim Crow, you think of those sorts of actions.

Things like having a mortgage covenant that no Black people or Latino people are able to buy a house in certain communities.

Those laws have largely been eradicated by the Fair Housing Act which we're coming up on the 55th anniversary of.

But there's also these factors that are sort of playing that have unintentional consequences maybe intentional, maybe not but, there are things that can happen that restrict people from being able to live in certain communities.

Like requiring an acre to purchase a home in Canton.

And so being able to purchase an acre in some communities immediately prices certain people out who haven't been able to build that generational wealth because of things like Jim Crow policies of the past.

- When we talk about acreage or particular developments that are permitted like single family homes versus a multifamily unit.

These are all examples of what's called zoning?

- So there is an exciting world of zoning that goes on through these hours long meeting, pretty big decisions are made in these local zoning board meetings that are largely comprised of volunteers and locally elected officials.

And so the they're making some pretty big decisions about who gets to move into a community.

And what type of housing gets to be built in those communities as well.

- I started out by asking about what is segregation.

When we think of our State here in Connecticut and something that was always striking to me when I moved here many years ago that you can have a very wealthy community just a few miles away from a community that is impoverished.

And there's such stark disparities between the towns we live in based on ZIP code.

Can you give us some more examples of that?

- Sure, for example, Bridgeport, a couple miles away from Bridgeport, one of the poorest communities in the country, a few miles away you have Fairfield and Westport, which are among the most wealthy communities in the country.

And so in Westport, you have a house that sells before the pandemic housing boom was selling for about $1.5 million was the median sale price in Westport compared to Bridgeport not only do far fewer share of residents there own a home, but they also the homes that are owned there are valued much less.

And so there's just this concentrated poverty in certain communities and Fairfield County, the Bridgeport, Norwalk metropolitan statistical area is the number one segregated community in the country.

And it's been that way for a while.

New Haven's not far behind in that region is not far behind as far as the level of dissimilarity index when you look at just how separated people live Connecticut does not fare well compared to other regions of the country.

- Some may be watching right now and say, well what's the big deal?

This is how a lot of states are made up.

You've got a wealthy areas and you have cities where poverty is concentrated but you did an investigative series for ProPublica just a couple of years ago, where you really looked at these invisible walls that had been put up in our state and the consequences of that.

Can you talk about your reporting?

- Sure, that's sort of the common default that people turn to is that, anyone can live here if they can afford to live here.

But when you look at poverty levels, of who actually is in poverty, when you look at median household income, unfortunately in Connecticut, race transcends wealth.

And so there is this reality that when you make it more expensive to live in certain communities, it does become about race.

When you look at things like requiring, restricting any duplexes from being able to be built in your community or any multifamily units, a four unit stretch of town homes from being built at the same square footage, as a mansion in that same community, you're not allowed to build it.

That inherently prices people out who may be able to afford that town home, but not the mansion.

There are several cases going on in Connecticut right now.

There's Woodbridge specifically that challenges that premise that you should only be able to build single family homes in anywhere in Woodbridge, almost.

- When these projects are brought up before a local planning and zoning commission or board what are some of the reasons why this board or commission may say this is not the right type of development in our town?

- So there's a lot of code words going on during these but then there's also a really well articulated arguments of all the 1000 reasons why something can't be built.

So let's talk about code words for a minute, I've listened in and read transcripts of public hearings, where, there was a proposal to develop in Westport to allow 12 townhouses on two and a half acres.

And the one of the members, a former chair of that panel said, this is ghettoizing Westport.

And a few towns over, there was a proposal to allow 50 single family homes on something that was otherwise zoned for, you had to have five acres in that part of town in order to even build a single family home.

So there's just more density in that community.

And the concern from the first selectman there was that, what do we do on Cinco de Mayo?

He didn't bring up 4th of July.

He didn't bring up Christmas.

He brought up a very specific holiday.

And then there's other sort of explanations that are given of why certain types of housing is not allowed in a community.

For example, there are reasons for it's gonna really impact our schools.

We can't handle the influx of students.

Well, aside from research that shows that, for every multi-family unit you've build actually there's about one and half new students will show up at schools assuming that you're not only building efficiency units or one bedroom units.

So that aside Connecticut school aged population has been declining and been declining rapidly in our suburbs for years.

When you start to dig away at sort of the explanations that are given it quickly starts to become present that something else might be at play.

- I think to the community that I live in, and it's known for its history of farming and farm still operate in the town that I live in.

But what's interesting over the years, if you talk to the old timers, so to speak people, who've lived there for many years, the amount of subdivisions popping up of single family homes, expensive homes and I'm wondering when these types of developments are proposed at local planning and zoning boards are these same points brought up that they worry about traffic.

They worry about influx of students.

I'm just curious if the rationale changes against or for something.

- They largely aren't brought up at the planning and zoning boards because they're allowed without a special permit, a special approval.

So that's the difference.

Single family homes are allowed to be built in this State and on 90% of our land without needing special approval.

And the remainder of that land is largely commercial and not for residential anyways but when you talk about multifamily housing you need to go through the town's attorneys of town's planning and zoning board.

You have to go through this whole process that you just don't have to go through if you're talking about a single family home.

So there's a strong preference for single family homes in Connecticut.

- I'm curious for all that you've laid out for us.

What does that mean for the amount of affordable housing in our State?

When you hear about projects that are denied time and time again in towns around Connecticut.

- So there's a lot of data surrounding just how many people spend at least half of their income on their housing and Connecticut it doesn't farewell compared to other places in the country.

When you look at how many people are so-called house burdened, severely house burdened rather.

And New Haven region specifically is one of the highest in the country and followed behind by Southwest Connecticut as well.

And so when you look at just how much people are paying in order to be to afford a house.

Matt Desmond he's done some incredible research about sort of rent eats first.

So you have to really choose what you're paying for.

Are you gonna pay for food, or are you gonna pay for your housing?

So there become these sort of trade-offs that start to happen when you're paying so much money for your housing costs, because the sort of the law of supply and demand is not allowing more houses to be built, and more affordable housing to be built in Connecticut which would naturally bring down prices.

- So where do we go from here, Jackie?

Again, we've heard about some towns who are an opposition that say, we should have local control of what is built in our town.

There are efforts to change that, of course but nothing that is firm, but I'm just wondering in terms of towns that have maybe been hearing this and thinking this could be something that we work on together as a community.

Has there been any movement about towns that are looking to really bring in, what's called affordable housing, so that not only are you helping people who have lived in impoverished areas for many years to find a different place to live to help the outcomes for them and their family, but thinking about the young professionals that we wanna attract to our State, where can they afford to live?

- So I think there's a few avenues forward.

The legislature has been given an incredible amount of time to get this done, and yet we're still the most segregated State in the country.

And so the reality is that in Connecticut Democrats have controlled both chambers of the legislature for the last 24 years and the governor's mansion for the last 11.

And so there comes a time where some housing individuals or housing advocates rather are saying enough is enough it's time for litigation.

And so there is a coalition that is working to get the courts involved.

There's also legislation this year that they're offering up in order to say, here's an a path forward to still maintain that local authority, that local sort of deference to how you wanna get your affordable housing built in your town.

They are asking the legislature to pass legislation that would give each town a share of how much housing they have to create based on housing needs and surveys.

And then leave it up to the courts to decide whether their plan is sufficient or not.

This legislation is saying, you guys still get to make the decision but there could potentially be consequences if your plan isn't high quality enough.

And then there's this other group Desegregate Connecticut who has proposed just flat requiring certain parts of towns around train stations and their downtown corridor to have that housing as a right, to allow a two three, four family unit to be able to be built without needing to go through that special approval.

That's what several other places around the country have taken that route.

And so it'll be interesting to see whether the legislature acts on either of those sort of really ambitious efforts, or if it will be left up to the courts to ultimately decide.

- Jacqueline we will have this time again with the Connecticut Mirror.

Thank you so much for talking with us tonight.

Housing looks very different across Connecticut cities and towns.

We wanted to visit parts of our State that have a variety of places to live from apartment buildings, to duplexes to other multi-family homes.

Now, earlier we met Calvin Harris who lives in Manchester.

We took a trip there to learn more about how this former Milltown has made housing accessible to a variety of residents.

We ended up at the Cheney Brothers National historic landmark once the site of a silk mill operated by the Cheney Brothers in the 1830s.

Multiple mill buildings were renovated over several decades and now include 964 apartments.

I met up with Kyle Shiel outside the Cheney mill district.

He's the senior planner for the town of Manchester.

- Manchester is really diverse, we're about 60% white.

So 40% nonwhite, we have the largest South Asian population in the region.

In fact, we are opening the cricket field in the North of town.

So people from South Asia, India Pakistan are gonna enjoy playing cricket in Manchester.

We're about 17% African-American compared to like 40 years ago, we were about 2% black.

So the town has become much more diverse over the past 40 years.

- I'm glad that you talk about what it was like 40 years ago but describe it for us and how the town has changed.

- So 40 years ago, Manchester was about 2% black and now we're about 17% black.

And if you ask an older resident of Manchester of color, much a Connecticut didn't have a great reputation as an inclusive, welcoming place.

If you ask an older black resident, one of the nicknames of Manchester was Clan Chester.

And if you look at the newspaper concert back in the day the only reason other towns weren't called that because it didn't a rhyme with the Klan.

- Its significant that hat we're here at the Cheney Converted Mills when we think about the type of housing this provides and did it, was it almost like a catalyst for your town to provide different types of housing?

- People valued these buildings so they didn't want them fall in disrepair and the market use indicated their residential was the most viable option.

And once people saw that housing can revitalize these buildings, it didn't seem weird subsequently.

So adaptive reuse was just something that people sort of got, people really value the history of this town and if it allows these buildings to, remain on the tax rolls and remaining good use, they were supportive of it.

- As senior planner, you're well aware the conversations happening now in our State about the importance of all towns allowing mixed types of housing, not just single family but multifamily units, town homes, duplexes even apartment buildings.

And I'm wondering how you see Manchester, what the role is for your town in this conversation about the importance of having this kind of housing, but also the whole idea of making living more affordable here in our State.

- What we found his Manchester already allows a lot of these things, so we already allowed duplexes, triplexes we allow accessory dwelling units, we have a lot of mixed use.

When we see these discussions about the State level, people getting upset, it's not new to Manchester.

We already allow these things and we feel they've been beneficial for the town.

Across the State, if you're worried about it you probably shouldn't be, it's gotta be fine.

It's good for the whole Community to allow these different types of developments.

- So can you show us a little bit more about your town and some different places that people live besides this really cool building here?

- Yes absolutely.

(soft music) - So we're walking away from the lofts at the mill and he described the neighborhood around here.

- Sure, so this is pretty good example of how you have a dense mixed use residential right here and across the street.

You have single family homes and small lots.

All part for road you have historical mansions.

And at the intersection there, you have a recently converted a brewery, very popular brewery Labyrinths owned by some Manchester residents.

- Where's the brewery?

- Right there, Labyrinth.

- Lets walk over to the brewery.

(laughs) - Earlier, we talked about the factors that leave our state largely segregated but who are the people, these housing barriers impact firsthand?

Tonika Lowe grew up in Connecticut.

She waited eight years to get a housing voucher in an area where she could safely raise her son.

She told us her story in the New Haven neighborhood where she's lived for almost seven years now.

Tonika tell us how you found Rockview or how Rockview found you?

- Okay, this is a strange story.

In 1997, I had a child.

I went on the section eight list cause I was a single mom.

And I thought like, I wasn't sure if I'd make all my bills.

And then I had an apartment.

I finished up at Southern and then I relocated to Virginia.

I came all the way back and my name had made it to the top of the list that the housing communities, had taken the list, and then I got an offer to come out here.

And I was just driving, through one day and I was like, this is really pretty.

And then it sort of all worked out.

- Why head back to Connecticut beyond getting your name at the top of the list.

Did you miss living in this State?

- Oh yeah, I came home for personal and family reasons but it all just came together.

It was right around my son was about to start like high school, like midway like maybe 10th or ninth or 10th grade.

So it was perfect for setting to have someone come straight home, peace and quiet, do their homework, how some friends, he knew our neighbor.

So it was like, it just fit.

All the pieces came together.

- This was six years ago.

Tell me more about your son's reaction coming back to Connecticut and living in Rockview.

- He was happy because it was like we were at my mom's living there for a little while until I could get some things going.

And I think we were just happy with space.

We were happy, it was affordable, we were happy that it was new.

And it's kind of out the way which is kind of an expression for New Haven.

So we weren't kind of in the light New Haven any more New Orville, we were kind of closer to him.

So it was really convenient for some things.

And I just think we liked that it was new.

It was kind of brand new.

So everyone we met here was brand new to us.

It wasn't like kind of the old people I've already known.

It was a good, fresh start.

I think my son liked - You mentioned that it wasn't like Newhallville So tell me a little bit about Newhallville, and why you wouldn't wanna be back there.

- I grew up over there and at that time when I moved back there was a lot of, it was funny little young children young men, like little gang issue going on with like a lot of the younger men.

And I felt like, because he went to Hill House I wanted to make sure he was okay.

And because he was gonna be in basketball and kind of finding sports and other activities to keep them busy.

I liked that we were kind of separate from kind of what was going on.

This gave him a little bit of a space to kind of, it's like, you're out the way.

Like we're not always in the middle of it.

We were sort of a little away from it.

So it felt really good to look like we went to sleep at night and it was like crickets, literally.

So I liked that.

- When you were talking about living in Virginia and thinking about affordability because we know Connecticut is expensive.

And is this something that you feel like is something that a lot of people are struggling with once they live in the New Haven area?

- Yes, I think that it's hard to be a single parent.

Connecticut is a State where most of the time you need two jobs to even afford your own things, the rent the priorities and necessities and then any amenities that you want, like entertainment things for yourself, vacation, I think it's pretty difficult.

So when you have anxiety that should you make a choice of paying the rent, which of course you should make but like what will be leftover?

Having affordable housing takes a huge weight, literally off your shoulders.

'Cause you're able to go, well, this is affordable, so now I can pay that and I can pay a few more things and we can enjoy some stuff.

And I didn't think we would still be doing this in 2021.

The housing would be this huge part of your income that you almost feel like you can't figure out if you can make it everywhere.

And here doesn't this allows you to have an opportunity to join a program, CARES Program, housing options, everyone's not on the same program.

Some are subsidy, some are section eight, hardworking families.

I mean, our parking lots are empty in the morning.

People are off to work but it feels good to know we can afford to live here.

And it's really nice.

- There's a conversation going on around our State about how to have more places like Rockview around to help working families young professionals, people that, they deserve to have a nice place to live and not everybody wants what they call affordable housing in their community.

So what would you say to people that fear what affordable housing?

- There's a misconception that this is considered like a systematic group of people in poverty.

And it's not, these are people that want the same thing everyone else wants.

They want their kids to play outside, they want their kids to see a nice backdrop.

They want a community center where they can find their child having fun or interested in activity.

And I just think like there's this stigma that everyone on housing subsidy is broke, minority, plays loud blaring music destroys the quality of the living environment.

And that's not true.

It's further from the truth.

I have neighbors that clean up behind themselves.

The kids are like some of the sweetest kids they've walked my dog.

Like this is a neighborhood where I'm proud to say I live in Rocky and I'm sure, 20 years ago, growing up on Dorman Street in the house with my family there was a time where people weren't so proud.

They were like, oh, it's the projects, and that terminology got changed with affordable housing.

It changed the conversation.

I'm now I'm ashamed to say, I live in Rockfield.

It's an affordable housing subsidy.

It's fine, it's beautiful.

- So tell me about your future plans Tonika.

You said that, your son's studying a university and how long do you hope think that you'll be living here?

- My plan is I've been in the CARES program.

It was about a six to seven year program.

It's a housing opportunity for you to save money, the money goes in Escrow, and when you're complete with it you can use some of the funds and go buy your home.

Right now I'm in the middle of purchasing a home.

I'm in that stage, I met the lender, I've met the realtor and I've taken the courses at the New Haven housing association on Sherman Avenue.

So I'm already so many steps closer to my dream is to be a homeowner.

- You mentioned why it's important to confront the stereotypes about people who are using vouchers to find an affordable place to rent.

Is that another stereotype that if somebody finally uses a voucher and finds a place that they never leave?

- I don't think that's true either.

I think that's a stigma.

That's a belief that people wanna be in like institutionalized poverty.

That's further from the truth.

Like I said, everybody leaves in the morning and go to the work.

And by the time you come in the night you can't find a parking space.

So that means everyone's home just getting rest to start that same, rat race we're all in.

But I don't think there's people here that just like get here and say, this is the last spot on my journey and I'm gonna stay here.

I think they outgrow the space.

There's people that my neighbors started on one kid that had three kids in.

We're always talking about moving because they need more house.

So this is not their stop.

This was just a little turn in their journey but it was a helpful one because it made it that took a big piece out of their puzzle of worrying about how to pay the rent.

- Karen Dubois-Walton was the executive director of Elm City Communities, the housing authority for the city of New Haven.

After 14 years, she took a leave of absence to run in the City of Democratic Mayoral Primary.

- West Rock is some of the earliest public housing in New Haven.

So some of the original housing here was from the 40s and over time needed a shot in the arm and actually overtime needed a total redevelopment.

And so we brought on engineers and architects who helped design and the elements are things that you'll find in other places in the city.

So it has a feeling that feels like New Haven but it also we're out here in this sort of suburban corner of New Haven.

So it also is something that really flows with our neighbors across the way in Hamden.

And Rockview was done in a couple of phases.

The newest one just opened last year.

- There used to be a fence here that that split Hamden and New Haven?

- The infamous wall, yes.

We had our own version of the Berlin wall that was a very ugly sort of prison style fence between the town of Hamden and New Haven.

And it was built with the consensus of both municipalities at the time with the Hamden residents concerned about being so close to lower income residents and the sense of what it meant to live in the projects and the city being responsive to that actually even the original sighting of public housing way out of out here was sort of that out of sight, out of mind thinking that that went along with development at that point.

And so the compromise between the two cities was to build this wall which over time got reinforced and was really a sign of the segregation in the community, it was a sign of the stigma about public housing and it really was not reflective of what we needed in this community.

But beyond the sort of stigma value of it also literally kept residents from being able to get just across the road there into the town of Hamden, which got them easy access to shopping and to job opportunities, and without that access, it meant that families living out here had to either many of them relied on public transportation, had to take multiple buses to get downtown to the Green transfer, onto another bus and all the way back out to Hamden to get to those same shops that they should be able to get to within a minute or so.

- So how many units are in this particular neighborhood of as you mentioned, Brookside Rockview and the others?

- So there are over 500 units now between what we have as an elderly building right as you come into the beginning of Welmont road and they have on the first floor of their building you can actually see it from here, they have a full healthcare center on the first floor and a corner store, two amenities that were really needed out in this sort of remote part of the city.

And then between Brookside, Rockview and twin Brooks you have the other 400 or so units.

- So looking around here, you can see how far New Haven has come this particular neighborhood.

- Yeah, absolutely.

This is, to me, this is the model of what affordable housing, present day affordable housing.

So we build things that are very different than what people may remember about what affordable housing that was built in the heyday in the 40s and 50s looks like.

We build it with different design standards.

We build it with a real sense of what residents want and what builds a strong community.

And we're looking for work outside of the city of New Haven.

And when we think it's really important that we push housing policy in this state so that the options for families who need affordable housing are not restricted only to the urban centers where for all sorts of reasons, we know that's happened over the decades of US housing policy.

- Can you talk more more about the need, we were able to speak to a resident of Rockview.

And she was saying that at one point when she moved out of Connecticut, she was way down the list as someone that had a voucher to find a place, an affordable place to live.

And then she got notification that she was at the top of the list.

She thought she moved back.

- Oh, there are 10s of 1000s of people on the wait list.

Right now we have over 10,000 families who are on a wait list hoping to move their way up to the top of the list as the resident you spoke to finally did.

If we're issuing a voucher to somebody today their application date is probably 2012.

So they have waited all that time in a place, living literally homeless for some families doubled up living with other people for other families, some families is renting, but renting at a price point that is far above what they can afford.

And so they're sacrificing other things.

They're chasing, one bill and neglecting another bill because of that situation.

So families are in pretty desperate need while they're waiting and really thrilled when they get that call.

- So what would you say there's a lot of opponents, especially in towns who don't wanna give up that home rule who feel like with a lot of these bills moving through the legislature or the potential for them to move and be voted on that local control will be taken away.

How do you respond to that concern?

- I think about it this way, if you have built and created something using tools that were racist and discriminatory to do that then you can't use the defense of well, we wanna keep, what we've built and not allow that to be changed anyway.

It's not me, many people have delineated, the history of US housing policy in the ways in which it was very explicitly used to keep Black and Brown families in certain areas, to keep wealth from Black and Brown families and to keep black and brown families out of suburban communities out of home ownership opportunities.

So knowing that, we can't just look at our towns and say, well, they are the way they are, and people moved here because this is the way they are, and so we're gonna just keep them the way that they are.

We have to take some actions to undo the damage that was done by that historical policy.

And that's supported by what's continuing to happen.

Because race and class is so linked to these wealth disparities that we're seeing, we know also the solution can't just be to tell people, well anyone can buy a house here, that's the solution.

We have to create that pathway in.

We've stopped creating starter home opportunities.

We stopped creating rental opportunities in so many of these places.

And so we have to do that to create a pathway in, that's a way to help families that have been blocked for so long to create the wealth that will allow them few years from now to maybe think about that $600,000 house.

- There are a number of bills related to housing that had been brought up during the legislative session.

Some have made it out of committee in a way to full vote by the Connecticut General Assembly.

Like a bill that calls for the State to reform local zoning laws.

Supporters say this legislation is needed to tackle discrimination and segregation in Connecticut.

Opponents argue zoning should be up to local towns and cities, not through state mandate.

Joining us now to talk about this debate Sara Bronin here on Skype, she's an architect and an attorney and founder of Desegregate Connecticut.

Sara, welcome to our program.

- Thanks for having me, Lucy.

- Also with us State, Senator Tony Hwong a ranking member on the planning and development committee in the Connecticut General Assembly.

He's deputy Senate Republican leader who represents the 28th district, Senator Hwong thank you for joining us as well.

- Lucy, thanks for having me.

- So I wanted to start with you Sara because we've know in this country over the last year especially after the death of George Floyd it's really been a national reckoning about race in our country.

And when we think about racism both individual acts of racism, but also structural racism there's a lot to unpack.

So can you talk about why Desegregate Connecticut focused on housing segregation in our State?

- So zoning (clears voice) zoning at the local level has dictated everything that we can build in our State.

It has led to outcomes that are clear before our very eyes.

We know that Connecticut is a highly segregated State and exclusionary zoning has played a central role in that.

Through rules, like minimum lot size through one size fits all zoning of single family zoning in the majority of Connecticut through other technical requirements like minimum parking requirements.

These little things have bit by bit ensure that too many people are shut out of opportunities in the places that they might wanna live.

- Senator Hwong I wanted to go to you because I understand when we talk about affordable housing you also have a personal perspective.

- For me as a first-generation immigrant racial minority in my first formative years were in a federal housing project and growing up in a large urban center in Syracuse New York, afforded me the opportunity to see that and experience it.

And, it has given me valuable lessons valuable perspective, and also in my role in serving for the past seven years in various capacities on the housing committee but now it's the ranking on planning and development, I am eager.

Let's be clear, we do have a critical need for accessible, diverse and affordable housing in every community in the State of Connecticut.

Not only in our suburb but in our city and in our rural setting.

And we also need to create solutions that kind of collaborates between neighborhoods, local State and Federal to get through the solution we need to get to.

Ultimately if we need to get status quo cannot stand.

But I think the difference is, how we collaborate and how we find those solutions.

There are the various communities needs.

And I think some of these solutions that we're debating about doesn't really solve the problem per se, it just simply increase density and I'm hopeful that we will collaborate and work together and I'm thankful and appreciative of Ms Bronin efforts in bringing her expertise to the table because I think ultimately we need all shareholders on this conversation.

So yes, I hope to be able to bring my perspective as an individual that have lived through the experience and have been tremendously benefited from opportunities in regards to housing opportunities, educational opportunities and an aspiration to pursue the American dream.

I've been a part of that.

I'm proud to have been a product of some of the successes that we've had.

- Senator you said that the status quo should not stand here in our State.

But the status quo has long left low-income housing to be something that's in our cities predominantly.

So as someone who's a ranking member on this planning and development committee, when we talk about solutions how does that involve also our suburbs?

- Well, the suburbs that we're looking at is a predominantly focused on properties and land (indistinct).

Oh, so I worked as a realtor before becoming fully engaged as a State Senator.

And I understand their unique challenges particularly when you calculate the model of housing that incorporates land costs.

Land costs significantly various and density issues and we've got environmental concerns.

So you're absolutely right but the fact that a disproportionate into certain communities shouldn't be addressed.

But nevertheless, we also need to look at unique characteristics that are part of the marketplace not a creation of any institution.

Look, historically could there have been efforts and exclusion?

Absolutely, I can offer to you nearly 35 years ago as a young couple, we looked at communities and we were redlined as an Asian American couple.

We were (indistinct), but I could share with you right now in this day and age, if any community exercises those levels of redlining discrimination it would never be allowed to stand.

But we also have tremendous market forces that the collaborators and the solutions we need to create need to account for.

Land costs varies from a Windham to Dariana from a standpoint of 600,000 for a small half acre in Dariana to possibly, a 100 000 in Windham.

So those are markets calculuses that we need to account for.

I think the second part is we have a landmark legislation section 830G, which has been passed over 30 plus years ago by blue ribbon panel that has the noblest intention, but it hadn't stopped their problem.

In fact, it's created a divisiveness of having private developers initiate action.

A lot of the reforms we're looking at, does not have the collaboration that I talked about of local, state, federal, and neighborhood.

It is again another solution where we're looking at private developers to create increase density.

We need to change that formula.

We need to incorporate significant share holders in how we breed solutions and account for considerations that aren't just purely looking at the data at present.

- Sara Bronin I wanted to go back to you because the Desegregate Connecticut efforts over the last year, you have started a coalition.

You've gone into these communities, you've talked to planning and zoning boards.

So can you talk about some of the changes that you'd like to see when we think about how zoning laws really keep the housing stock in our State, not diverse at all?

There's so much single family homes and not enough affordable housing.

- I appreciate your mentioning our coalition which includes nearly 70 credible non-profit organizations, representing 10s of 1000s of people.

We've held events since last June of over 2000 people.

We've gone to probably over 50 different organizational events that have invited us.

We've worked with municipal officials we've worked with town planners and zoning enforcement officials, real estate developers real estate agents, people all over the state to develop the proposals that you just asked me about.

And I'll tell you one voice that has never been at the table, one person who has never, ever reached out to us or responded to invitations to meet and discuss solutions, and that unfortunately is Senator Hwong.

I know that his rhetoric in the last question was that he would like to collaborate and work together and come to solutions.

I didn't hear a single solution and I do wanna point out that he has yet to respond to our invitations to meet.

So I welcome that conversation as always and I appreciate that.

In terms of what specifically we're hoping for our package of proposals has been industry tested or state tested across the country.

And a few common sense, things that you can read about on our website, desegregatect.org.

One of them is adding or legalizing accessory dwelling units in single family housing across the State.

That would enable property owners, homeowners to decide whether they wanted to convert their third floor or garage apartment to add another dwelling.

It's that kind of gentle density or the additions to single family housing in existing neighborhoods where it already exists to create small units of housing.

You also had on the table, suggestions to change main street housing and transit.

Those were taken out by the committee.

And what was left in was accessory dwelling units that changes to the word, a defining character a little bit better training for commissioners which is badly needed, including in the senator's home district they're being sued four times right now in active cases before the state courts, including a case which I would love for Senator Hwong to denounce which involved just extremely derogatory comments to Chinese American family in Westport, who was denied zoning relief and where the commissioners joked that they would be deported.

There's a broad range of platform ideas, and I would love Senator Hwong in continued engagement because the problems are still very real even if we think they happened long ago.

- And Lucy, an opportunity to get beyond the rhetoric and a little bit of some of the point counter points let me be official right on here, Ms. Bronin, I'd be happy to meet with you, I offer that in our hearing and I've not heard any requests coming back from you.

But neither here or there.

I think it's important.

I'm happy to work with any organization.

And I'm happy to engage And I'd be happy to participate in any of your forms.

So let be clear and publicly I am absolutely open and receptive.

And what we did in the planning and development in a true bipartisan basis was to take out some of the very onerous actions that have been that been suggested.

And it truly was quite partisan.

And I think what you get more of a dialogue when you look at organizations and coalitions that you participate in, it is a selectivity of looking at some of the real impacts of some of the proposals you've been enacted.

That's what I've tried to do.

In regards to various actions you're absolutely right.

Like I said, if anybody was doing anything from a standpoint of exclusionary practices or red lining the legal recourse that you just cited will be there.

And I will absolutely denounce any kind of generic or segregation effort, absolutely for me as an Asian American and a racial minority, I absolutely denounce it.

So you pull out any of those entities I will call out and join you in denouncing.

The other point is the reality.

When you talk about the shareholders, you talked about, you didn't have a lot of the people offer contrasting viewpoint.

It was very much a (indistinct) gathering.

You wanna have a collaborative effort, you want people that are shareholders that seemingly discreet, that offers contrasting viewpoint to get to solution, not one size fits all, not the idea that the state knows better than the local community.

If you look at the language of the bills that they've been proposed, not only 1024 but the various other ones.

The common theme is, that the state knows better than the local bodies.

That correct (indistinct).

So if we are really looking for solutions and getting everybody's buy-in that you wanna incorporate all contrasting viewpoint.

But unfortunately until recently when these bills came out, well didn't really know what was happening.

Their local impact of their neighborhoods would dictate it by Harper bureaucrats.

And that is one of the things the exciting part that we have right now is, this is an opportunity for us to find solutions, not fading, not pointing fingers I been very respectful of you.

And at the same time, we have a simple disagreement.

I hope to work together.

I hope this shouldn't approve to offer a compelling contrast the viewpoint to yours and hopefully we can find solutions.

And the other important part that is critical here is the idea of home rule and personal property rights.

that cannot be ignored and whatever the rationale would be, you have to take that into consideration.

- Senator you've mentioned home rule we've heard, we mentioned the rhetoric over the last several months about affordable housing and residents worried about local control being taken away.

But wasn't at the state that gave local towns the ability to come up with their zoning regulations?

And if the state did that at one point what is wrong with the state getting involved now to say we still have a problem in this state.

There is what?

87,000 affordable housing units that are still needed in our state to accommodate the people that cannot afford to live here.

And so if the state doesn't act, then what's gonna compel these towns to get involved?

- There is a critical need Lucy, no doubt about it I must be clear on that.

But we also need to have a collaborative effort there's need everywhere.

Give you a great example of a (indistinct) in Westport.

We initiated through the town leaders and the planning and zoning and the affordable housing task force, (indistinct) and approach the State Department of Transportation be able to allocate a portion of their transit Depot area that they're not using through a year of effort we've been able to get the state to agree.

The town will now develop 40 plus high quality D restricted units.

And you know the first group that came out in support of that effort, was the neighborhoods surrounding it.

So the collaboration that talked about was to be able to have state, neighborhood and local municipalities combined to create solutions.

I do believe if we operate from this kind of a collaborative effort we will get more done.

The status quo can not, but nevertheless, a top down approach that is being offered right now in these towns is untenable.

We didn't have example (indistinct) an initiation that is occurring throughout the state.

Let us build on that, let us collaborate more and get to the solution that we need.

- Unfortunately, Senator Hwong had to leave to make some remarks before the Connecticut General Assembly but I wanted you to clarify something that Senator Hwong alluded to, and the fact that a lot of the proposals that Desegregate Connecticut and others have put forth to encourage towns to create more multi-family units that somehow these proposals are taking away local control.

Can you clarify that for us?

Because even if the state were to pass certain bills and say, a developer doesn't need to get a particular approval from planning and zoning to maybe build a two family or three family near a main street.

They would still have to follow zoning requirements that the town themselves come up with.

Isn't that true?

- That's exactly right.

So the proposals on the table would not take away local control.

It would actually help the entire state to row in the same inclusive direction.

Already the state is the one that tells local governments that they can zone.

It has adopted an enabling authority to allow local governments to zone, but it already sets out the particulars of the powers that local governments have when it comes to zoning.

This just fleshes out some of the structure that's already in place when it comes to state and local power sharing arrangements in zoning.

- Well, we know that sometimes it takes years especially in Connecticut, the land of steady habits to make the changes that are necessary.

And this is really the first year that Desegregate Connecticut has been putting forth these types of zoning reform proposals.

The session is short, what do you hope to accomplish this year?

And will you be back next year?

- We don't have years to start to address this issue.

We need to address this issue now.

If you are out there listening and you're interested in getting involved, please do, because your local legislators need to hear from you.

I think together, we can really push these issues forward, this legislative session.

We have a moral imperative to do that but even if you care nothing at all about equity we have a real economic problem in this state.

It can be solved by producing more housing, which gives people a place to live gives our workers a place to call home.

It gives our seniors a place to age in place gives young people opportunities to return to their home state and help to grow it and make it better.

And that's the promise of even these first steps that we're starting this year and yes, we will be back, but we're gonna be back with different proposals because we think the legislature is gonna pass this zoning reform this year.

- Well, Sara Bronin and founder of Desegregate Connecticut.

We thank you for joining us today.

- Thank you for having me Lucy.

- Again, that was Sara Bronin an architect and attorney who is founder of Desegregate Connecticut.

Earlier, we heard from State Senator Tony Hwang ranking member of the planning and development committee in the Connecticut General Assembly.

He represents the 28th District.

Thank you for watching tonight.

For Connecticut Public I'm Lucy Nalpathanchil.

(soft music) - [Narrator] Funding provided by Bank of America, The Melville Charitable Trust and Connecticut Green Bank.