After weeks of hedging, Gov. Ned Lamont last week vetoed House Bill 5002, which was the most significant piece of housing legislation to cross his desk since he became governor in 2019.
Lawmakers will now spend the coming weeks reworking the housing omnibus bill, with negotiations likely focused on changes to policies that mandate towns to plan for more housing, changes to parking requirements and potentially reviving a measure dropped during the session that would tie school construction money to affordable housing.
Lamont vetoed the bill, which his staff negotiated, amid objections from some groups largely centering around provisions on parking reform and a requirement for towns to plan and zone for a set number of units. Opponents feared the bill would dilute local control and put unrealistic expectations on towns for building more housing.
Now, lawmakers are pushing forward with more negotiations on the bill ahead of a special session that will likely be held either next month or in the fall. Democratic leadership said they’re focused on preserving as much of the bill as possible, and Senate Democrats have additional measures they want to add into the omnibus bill.
“I think we can make it better. I think the only way to really make it work is if you have buy-in from the local communities,” Lamont said last week.
[RELATED: What to know about H.B. 5002, the omnibus housing bill]
Democrats responded with disappointment and frustration about the decision, but said they were pushing forward with crafting the best possible bill.
“All the politics of the last couple of weeks I’m less concerned with and remain focused on the actual outcome, which is housing for people and families,” said House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford.
“Housing remains a huge issue for so many people, and to do nothing lets many, many people down in our state,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk.
Housing Committee co-chair Rep. Antonio Felipe, D-Bridgeport, said he fears by vetoing the bill instead of signing it and asking for specific adjustments, Lamont may have opened the floodgates to more widespread changes to the bill.
“It seems like this veto is really geared towards one particular area in our state, and it was short-sighted,” Felipe said, referring to much of the opposition, which centered in Fairfield County. “It was a mistake, and I really hope that we have the wherewithal to stick together and put together another good bill, because the more time comes off the clock, the harder it is for us to start addressing the housing crisis.”
Housing Committee ranking member Rep. Tony Scott, R-Monroe, said House Republicans haven’t been involved in negotiations on the new version of the housing bill, which he views as part of the problem. He has ideas, he said, but hasn’t had a meeting with Lamont to talk about them.
Lamont wasn’t clear last Monday, when he vetoed H.B. 5002, about what specific changes he wanted to see, although he said he wanted to push for policy that got town leadership more on board. Later in the week, details still weren’t available from his office.
“The Governor continues to meet with legislative and policy staff on developing aspects of a housing bill,” Lamont’s spokesman Rob Blanchard said in a statement Thursday. “He then hopes to meet with legislative leaders and engage with local officials on a draft proposal that helps to address the housing crisis while also ensuring towns and cities are partners in the process.”
Lawmakers said they have tried for years to get local leadership on board with housing policy change, particularly through a roundtable group on affordable housing convened in 2023. They questioned how realistic it is that the governor could come up with a meaningful policy that got people on board.
“It’s been very tough up until this point, but if he has a secret sauce, then more power to him,” Duff said.
Lamont said at a press conference to announce the veto that much of the opposition he heard, some of which he classified as misinformation, was around a policy known as fair share. The policy, which has been used in New Jersey for decades, would have required that towns plan and zone for a set number of units of affordable housing.
The numbers were based on a formula that divided up the regional housing need among towns. Felipe said there might be some adjustments to that approach to add more consideration for how much land is available to build housing in a municipality.
Rojas said there may also be adjustments to create a more robust process for towns to appeal their assigned numbers, although that process was already established in the bill Lamont vetoed.
“What is particularly troubling is that the governor’s decision seems to have been made in large part based on objections that were coming from misinformation-fueled objections,” said Erin Boggs, executive director of the Open Communities Alliance, which advocated for and helped craft the fair share portion. “We really can’t be a state that grounds its public policy on misinformation.”
Lamont also indicated he wanted to make changes to a policy that would ban formulaic parking requirements for smaller residential developments. The idea sparked opposition from local leadership who said it might result in not enough parking for residents, particularly those with mobility issues.
Casey Moran, a founder of CT Parking Reform, said these formulaic requirements are widespread. In Naugatuck, for example, studio apartments require at least three parking spaces. In Trumbull, accessory dwelling units require four parking spaces.
Adding parking makes building housing more expensive and takes up more land. Parking lots also create runoff that can hurt the environment.
Rojas said there may be changes to be made to the parking portion, although he didn’t get into detail.
Duff said that negotiations on the bill “can’t just be one-sided,” and that Senate Democrats want to add in a provision of the bill that would increase school construction reimbursement rates for towns that have at least 10% designated affordable housing.
They’d removed that provision because they’d been told the governor would veto the bill if it was present, Duff said.
Lawmakers and advocates said it’s unlikely that there will be changes to a policy known as “Work, Live, Ride,” which prioritizes certain state infrastructure funding for towns that increase residential density near public transit.
Lamont last week also mentioned opposition to a measure that would have required towns to allow commercial properties to be turned into smaller housing complexes without a special hearing before planning and zoning boards.
Rojas said there may be changes to that policy.
Despite potential changes, he said he doesn’t think there’s a policy that will get everyone on board and significantly increase housing in Connecticut.
“Sometimes leaders using the authority and the power that they have, just need to lead, and that’s the way I feel about us at the state level and certainly at the executive branch level,” Rojas said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
