Opponents of Connecticut’s controversial new affordable housing law challenged a proposed addition to the law at a Housing Committee public hearing on Tuesday.
The bill would allow developers to build townhouses in single-family zones with municipal sewer and water. It would cap lot sizes, limit setbacks and ban limits on house sizes.
“This bill would add impervious surfaces to areas that just can’t take it anymore and it would exacerbate and not mitigate the issue there,” said Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo, one of many opponents who testified against the proposal.
He said it would erode local control of zoning and create dense housing that would be bad for the environment and cause coastal flooding problems for towns like Greenwich.
Senator Martha Marx (D-New London), co-chair of the Housing Committee and a sponsor of the bill, pushed back and said it would not alter environmental protections.
“All it does is change the lot size and the setback because we need 100,000 new homes,” Marx said.
Single-family starter homes are what are most needed to alleviate the state’s housing shortage, she said.
“I live in southeastern Connecticut. We have 8000 people starting at Electric Boat this year, who need to be hired. So we need to move away from just affordable housing and start going into starter homes. That is the intent of this legislation,” Marx said.
