On October 14, 2025, members of Bethel, Connecticut’s Planning and Zoning commission filed a motion to reject a 75-unit housing project, proposed by Vessel Technologies, a New York-based housing developer. Vessel has gained a reputation in recent years for fiercely contesting opposition to its housing projects, most of which provide 30% of their units at an “affordable housing rate,” the minimum number required to trigger the state’s 8-30g law.

8-30g was passed in 1989 and went into effect in 1990, intending to incentivize the development of affordable housing in the state. The law allows developers to sidestep municipal zoning ordinances if less than 10% of the town’s housing is affordable and if the proposed development deed-restricts at least 30% of its units to an affordable rate. Towns can only deny applications that meet these criteria if it is, “necessary to protect substantial public interests in health, safety or other matters,” and only if those interests, “clearly outweigh the need for affordable housing.”

Despite 8-30g having been law for 35 years, Vessel’s most recent denial by Bethel’s zoning commissions, past denials by the commissions of Rocky Hill and Simsbury, and its current legal battles with the commissions of Glastonbury and Newtown, go to show the lengths to which local officials are willing to fight the law. Town officials and representatives of the state’s smaller municipalities, such as Betsy Gara of CT COST or State Rep. Raghib Allie-Brennan (D-Bethel), have criticized 8-30g as undermining municipal sovereignty and have long advocated for the legislature to make additional carve-outs.

“We’ve always been supportive of efforts to meet affordable housing goals,” said Gara. “But we also feel that it’s time to take a longer look at 8-30g and figure out what’s working and what isn’t, and how we can make it more reasonable in terms of the type and the quantity of housing units that are built in each town.”

8-30g’s proponents, such as land use lawyer Tim Hollister, who assisted in the drafting of 8-30g, often argue that 8-30g is good as it is. Hollister and Peter Harrison, Connecticut’s Director of the Regional Plan Association, which runs advocacy group Desegregate CT, both said that any modification to 8-30g would “water down” the law. 

“The towns have all the authority they need,” said Hollister. “All they have to do is prove that there’s a substantial public health and safety interest, and when they do that, their denials are held by the courts. I’m not sure that there’s any need for giving them more authority.”

The issue of 8-30g will likely be the topic of discussion in Hartford sooner rather than later. In June, Gov. Ned Lamont vetoed HB 5002, a wide-sweeping omnibus bill aimed at addressing the state’s housing shortage that included a handful of alterations to 8-30g. He promised to call a special session for the purpose of passing a revised form of the bill, which is expected to occur in November. Last week, Lamont said he and state legislative leadership are “pretty close,” to working out the revised bill’s final kinks. 

Only time will tell whether the final version of the bill will serve to please both 8-30g’s proponents or opponents, or whether any such compromise is even a possibility.

On Sept. 4, Rep. Allie-Brennan released a statement criticizing Vessel’s Bethel proposal, saying it, “has felt like it was drawn up in a corporate boardroom and dropped into our neighborhood with no real engagement, no collaboration and no respect for the people who actually live here.”

In a conversation with Inside Investigator, Allie-Brennan went in greater depth about his grievances not just with Vessel’s application, but with 8-30g.

“When you have a five-story, 75-unit building on a 4.3-acre lot, on a narrow street with no sidewalks and limited access ­— you know, that’s a public safety concern and a lot of people are upset and rightfully so,” said Allie-Brennan. He noted a fatal hit-and-run that occurred earlier this year up the street, saying adding more cars to the area would make it, “even more concerning.”

“This isn’t just about one street in Bethel, it’s happening across the state,” said Allie-Brennan. “Developers are using 8-30g not to solve our housing crisis, but to steamroll local oversight and fast track these oversized projects.”

Allie-Brennan has been an advocate of changing 8-30g since he was elected in 2019, noting that he was one of the 17 Democrats who joined all 49 of the House’s Republican members in voting no on HB 5002. Of those 17 Democrats, 10 of them represented districts in Fairfield County, eight of them in the state’s “Gold Coast” region.

Allie-Brennan called Vessel an “out of state developer” who was “exploiting the law.” He likened Vessel’s rooms to “prison cells,” and shared his belief that “they’re probably prioritizing speed and profit over quality.” Above all else, though, he thought company leaders and representatives have shown a lack of willingness to address community concerns.

“There hasn’t been any genuine partnership in this,” said Allie-Brennan.

In his Sept. 4 statement, Allie-Brennan said residents shared concerns “about traffic, infrastructure, emergency access, and the complete lack of neighborhood fit.” Allie-Brennan told Inside Investigator that police and fire officials shared safety concerns because of the project’s height.

“Our fire trucks, you know, I don’t know that the fire truck is able to go up to five stories,” said Allie-Brennan. “Scaling it down a bit would be better, because I just think it wouldn’t be as much [of an] impact on that street and neighborhood.”

On Aug. 18, Vessel offered to reduce its footprint. According to NewsTimes, Vessel attorney Jason Klein said the company would agree to reduce the proposed building from five stories to four, reduce the number of units, increase the number of parking spaces, and swap the building’s color palette. The company conditioned these changes upon the commission closing the public-hearing phase and holding a vote on Sept. 9, which the commission declined to do.

Vessel isn’t Bethel’s first attempt at trying to buck 8-30g.

In July of this year, the commission considered no-voting a 20-unit apartment proposal on Taylor Ave., citing concerns with the location’s impact on traffic and pedestrian safety, but relented upon the advice of Bethel First Selectman, Dan Carter, who told the commission they had little legal basis for a denial. In 2023, the town’s board denied a 42-apartment development on Whitney Rd. because it argued “fugitive dust” from a nearby masonry plant could pose a health risk. That argument was shot down in Superior Court, causing them to reverse their decision in September of this year.

One Bethel resident at the Oct. 14 meeting, Kaitlyn Mello, cited the commission’s loss in its legal battle over Whitney Rd. as an experience worth learning from.

“As a taxpayer and a mom, I’m just very concerned with how the town is handling the 8-30g applications, and I just wanted to address it,” said Mello. “If you look at 17 Whitney Rd., that cost the town almost $75,000 out of pocket, and you lost all your approval conditions. So, my thing is, as a member of Bethel, a mom of Bethel, you need to start working with these developers.”

Perhaps in an attempt to skirt litigation, half of the town’s six-page motion to deny offered a laundry list of suggested improvements to Vessel’s proposal, “should it wish to submit a resubmission application or a new application.”

Vessel’s latest statement since the denial, provided to the Greenwich Time on Oct. 28, confirmed the company would most likely take Bethel to court over the decision.

“We are filing a protective appeal but are engaged with Bethel’s staff to explore opportunities for a swift resolution outside of court,” said Vessel.

According to the motion, “the Commission heard significant public testimony regarding the high traffic volume, excessive vehicle speed and large amount of truck traffic due to a low bridge on Route 53 necessitating Nashville Rd [site of the proposal], as a bypass for large trucks causing safety concerns.” 

The commission ultimately predicated its denial on the findings of the town’s Health Director, who determined “there to be a reasonable likelihood of damage to nearby wells” if the project was approved due to site construction. Vessel’s VP has called the well-water concern “factually inaccurate,” saying two of the three wells would not be within 1,000 feet of Vessel’s proposed drilling and that the household that owns the third well is connected to the public water system.

Allie-Brennan said that he supports Bethel leadership’s decision to deny the proposal, even if it ends in litigation.

“I think it’s important that towns don’t go without a fight,” said Allie-Brennan. “Like I said, you’re seeing that the state doesn’t really care, you know, they’re trying to expand the law. I support Bethel’s decision.”

Bethel officials are currently working on a moratorium application. The state offers four-year 8-30g moratoriums to towns that can prove they have enough housing-unit equivalent points, which are points given on a weighted scale to towns for the construction of housing. 

Inside Investigator reached out to Vessel and Bethel’s Planning and Zoning Commission, but both declined to comment.

Tim Hollister, a prominent land-use attorney, said he was only a “scrivener” when he worked on the 1989 blue-ribbon panel that culminated in 8-30g’s passage. He said his biggest contribution to the bill was his 1988 win in Builders Service Corp vs. Planning and Zoning Commission of East Hampton, a case that made it all the way to the state’s Supreme Court. He successfully argued that East Hampton’s zoning ordinance, which dictated that his client couldn’t build a house with a sub-1,200-foot floor plan, was exclusionary, leading to the precedent that zoning ordinances must have a basis in, “health, safety and general welfare.”

“That case actually led to the adoption of 8-30g,” said Hollister. “The court case was a very important factor because that was a signal to the legislature that if they did not adopt some kind of a program, that the courts might do it for them, which is what happened in New Jersey under the famous Mount Laurel doctrine.”

Hollister said that housing prices were “exploding” at the time, prompting state legislators to take the issue of housing affordability seriously. The blue-ribbon panel’s report found that zoning commissions were “routinely approving” larger, single-family homes while denying multi-family and affordable houses, said Hollister. He said the finding led state lawmakers to believe that there needed, “to be some mechanism to assist multi-family affordable developments” to get approved, and that measure was 8-30g.

Hollister said the state also looked at Massachusetts’s passage of its 40-b statute 20 years prior, which allowed for similar provisions, as a sign that such measures could work in Connecticut.

“40-b seemed to be working well and not having any, you know, cataclysmic consequences in Massachusetts,” said Hollister. “So why don’t we try something similar? I think that those were the overriding feelings.”

Peter Harrison described 8-30g as a mere “builder’s remedy” measure, and as only one of several suggestions made by the blue-ribbon panel at that time. He said that while people tend to view it as an affordable housing measure, it’s not.

“The other parts were supposed to figure out ways to encourage or force towns to make the types of land use changes and infrastructure investments required to address the housing crisis, which existed 30 years ago and certainly is worse now,” said Harrison. “But 8-30g, the builder’s remedy piece of it, is the only thing that passed.”

Hollister described the first 15 years after 8-30g’s passage as a “long, slow learning process,” both for the state’s court of law and court of public opinion. He said that years of court precedent have left both developers and municipalities with knowledge of the statute’s boundaries, which have ruled overwhelmingly in favor of developers. While lawyers in the early 2000s estimated that developers win 70% of 8-30g suits, Hollister said that percentage has only risen since then.

“It’s gone up, and that’s just because the developer community and its representatives like me have gotten smarter about which is a good candidate site,” said Hollister. “I would say it’s upwards of 80% in the last 15 years.”

Hollister said that he also believes the number of affordable housing complexes built has helped to extinguish residential concerns surrounding future development.

“There’s now a statewide track record of many attractive, livable, you know, pedestrian friendly, commuter friendly developments,” said Hollister. “And so, we’re able to point to those and say, ‘Look, what are you afraid of with affordable housing?’”

Looking at the minutes of some of Vessel’s meetings before municipal zoning boards shows very clearly what residents are afraid of.

The minutes of a Nov. 7, 2024, planning and zoning meeting in Newtown, just one of the public hearings held on the proposal, reveal several resident complaints and concerns. Newtown resident Craig Smigala said he thought that the proposal was like another 8-30g proposal in Danbury, that he said, “has [had] drugs and crime for decades,” and said that its adjacency to a high school parking lot, “will put children at risk.” Another resident, Rob Emmerthal, also cited the proposal’s proximity to a high school as one of several concerns. 

Altogether, fifteen people commented on the proposal, and only one had positive remarks for the project. Complaints included issues such as traffic, road safety, water access, town character, stormwater capacity, parking, and strain on municipal infrastructure. Vessel’s VP, Josh Levy, reportedly agreed to plant native trees on the property’s lawn and said he would review the location’s entrance and exits in response to public comments. 

In Glastonbury, residents lodged many of the same complaints as in Newtown: pedestrian safety concerns, parking concerns, and complaints about the proposed apartment’s aesthetics. 

Both towns have since rejected Vessel’s proposals, and both have since been sued by the company. Glastonbury’s planning and zoning commission voted 6-0 to deny Vessel’s 48-unit proposal in March 2023, arguing that it had been proposed in an industrial zone, which would not be privy to 8-30g’s stipulations. Newtown denied Vessel’s proposal in February, and predicated their denial on the fact that Aquarion issued a temporary suspension for new water connections in the area, even though Vessel agreed to condition its approval on holding off construction until receipt of a “will-serve” letter from Aquarion. 

In Vessel’s suit against Glastonbury, company attorneys argued that the zone is a Planned Commerce District, not expressly an industrial zone, and that because pre-existing housing developments are permitted in the zone, the town had no basis to deny the application. On July 12, 2024, Superior Court judge Edward O’Hanlan ruled in Vessel’s favor, stating, “The statute directs an inquiry whether the subject property is located in an area that the town zoning commission has designated as an industrial zone; any further analysis goes beyond the legislature’s criteria and direction.”

Glastonbury has since appealed the case, which is still working its way through the courts. Hollister is representing Vessel in the suit but declined to comment on the matter. 

Vessel sued Newtown in April, accusing the town’s planning and zoning commission of failing to establish any legitimate public health or safety risk and of not stating why any of Vessel’s previous attempts to condition the project’s construction on receipt of a “will serve” letter from Aquarion were insufficient at alleviating perceived risks, among other grievances.

“Further dialogue with the Commission on the record confirmed that the Applicants were willing to forego even clearing land and other pre-construction site work before such letter was issued by Aquarion,” reads their complaint. “In other words, the Applicants confirmed their willingness to accept a condition of approval providing that this project could not be built without prior confirmation of water connection by Aquarion.”

Perhaps as polarizing a topic as the bill itself is the validity of opposition to it. Gara said she thought that municipalities’ continued persistence in denying 8-30g suits comes from a place of genuine belief that they can win a case in court.

“I think that they [municipal boards] believe that they have a valid case,” said Betsy Gara, Executive Director of CT Council of Small Towns (COST). “It’s very expensive to litigate, as you know, so I don’t believe that they would pursue litigation unless they felt that they had solid ground to stand on.”

Gara said it’s important for local planning and zoning boards to recognize the statewide laws and processes they must adhere to, and the parameters by which they can deny proposals, and shared her belief that, “in most cases, they do.”

“Despite some very considerable protests by the public, [they] recognize that they have to adhere to the law in making these decisions,” said Gara. “Certainly, are there times when that doesn’t happen? Of course, it’s the nature of things, but I think by and large our local boards and commissions are doing their job in the best way that they know how.”

Hollister believes that oftentimes planning and zoning officials do find themselves folding to public pressure and called it, “a perfectly understandable human reaction.”

“We have 169 towns,” said Hollister. “A lot of them are very small towns, and there’s not much distance, you know, physically or metaphysically, between the boards or commissions and the people whom they serve.”

The issues with 8-30g are often posed as “local control vs. state overreach.” While Gara and Allie-Brennan obviously both support keeping authority in the hands of municipal commissions, Hollister and Harrison both shared their belief that doing so has only impeded adequate housing development. The ability of town commissions to succumb to local pressure is just another side-effect of local control, said Hollister.

“People don’t want to go into the coffee shop and get yelled at by their neighbors,” said Hollister. “But it’s also to the detriment of our system, that we submit our planning and zoning commissioners to that kind of public pressure.”

At Bethel’s Oct. 14 meeting, residents made very clear their opinions, with one resident thanking the commission for denying the proposal. Others provided their own thoughts on how the commission could dissuade future 8-30g development. Denise Farren, who is running as an alternate for the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals, asked the commission if they were aware of General Statutes 8-1c, which allows municipalities to require applicants to pay the consultant fees required for planning studies, a power which Nancy Sudik, another Bethel resident, said “can only benefit Bethel,” when considering applications like Vessel’s.

“It seems as if it’s a very powerful tool that you have in your toolbox,” said Sudik. “If you chose to use this tool, then perhaps we wouldn’t be having all the angst that we’re having in this town, with all of the projects that have been developed in the wrong places, with the wrong architecture, etc. etc. And I realize health and safety is primary, and I know that I can’t reference a particular project [Vessel’s], but I’m certainly thinking of it.”

As for why residents get so upset with dense developments, the opinions are also split. Hollister said people still hold stereotypes regarding “impacts on school systems, and crime and other things that are just not true,” saying “myths don’t die easily.” 

Harrison characterized some opposition as legitimate good faith arguments, typically concerns surrounding water and sewer capacity, traffic, number of school-age children, etc., but that most of these are “solvable problems.” He also said these arguments are often misused in a bad-faith manner. Hollister noted that despite the stipulations of 8-30g, there are still a number of ways towns can tie up such projects, mainly via wetlands or sewer regulations.

“Some towns, they have tried to take steps to prevent sewer capacity or water supply from being available for multi-family development,” said Hollister. “There’s a town that has claimed that its system has been under repair now for 20 years, they can’t allow any new connections; they allow it for large, single-family homes, or luxury small apartment development, but they slow walk their sewer repairs in order to prevent them from being obligated to approve sewer capacity for new development.”

This could be alleviated if 8-30g were to take another page out of 40-b’s book; per Massachusetts’s statute, if a developer qualifies, they receive a ‘comprehensive permit’, said Hollister, allowing them to bypass the consideration of wetlands and sewer commissions.

Hollister said parking requirements are another method towns use to reduce a development’s density. The more parking spaces are baked into a proposal, the less room there will be for housing units. Perhaps the most brazen attempt he’s seen towards shutting towns off from 8-30g development is the redistricting of properties into industrial zones, which are exempt from 8-30g’s stipulations.

“I have seen towns anticipating a potential 8-30g development rezone a property that has no business being rezoned industrial to do just that [prevent development],” said Hollister. “I’ve seen a couple instances of that.”

Both he and Hollister claim, however, that the most “bad faith” argument against housing comes in the form of complaints about town character.

“There’s a lot of kind of racial and class-based innuendo of ‘disrupt the character of the town,’” said Harrison. “Or, you know, ‘I worked hard for my town, and I don’t want to see things change or those people move here.’”

Gara said that she doesn’t believe character concerns are always a cover for racism, but rather that many rural residents don’t want their town to lose its small-town charm. She noted that many small towns in Connecticut have “rich history, character, cute little main streets and downtowns,” which provide not only sentimental value to the residents but also tourism value to the state.

“People push back on the fact that towns shouldn’t try to preserve their character, that that’s code for somehow not wanting to see a more diverse population in the community,” said Gara. “I don’t believe it is. I think the issue is that small towns value the rural setting in many cases and want to preserve that.”

Gara said, regardless of the reasoning or concerns, however, she advises the municipal leaders she speaks with that their best course of action is typically to work with affordable housing developers, instead of against them.

“They would be better off working with the developers to try to create affordable housing that, on a smaller scale, may meet their affordable housing needs without undermining the rural or small-town character of the community,” said Gara. 

Gara noted that many towns did have legitimate issues with meeting the 10% affordable housing goals set by 8-30g, specifically towns that have a limited amount of buildable land, such as Barkhamstead or Farmington, or towns that have limited water or sewer capacity.

“I know that’s going to be part of the conversation, if in fact there is a housing bill that’s going to be voted on, is; how do we assist our communities in developing the infrastructure needed to support housing density?” said Gara. “Because there are some towns that are trying to do that, and they run up against the fact that they don’t have sufficient capacity and that’s an expensive proposition. Whenever you’re trying to extend a sewer line or a water main, it gets very expensive, very fast.”

Hollister noted the fact that it is always in the developer’s best interests to ensure that housing is “attractive and safe,” and said many of the criticisms associated with the quality of affordable housing just simply aren’t true.

“People forget that no one has a bigger interest in making sure housing is livable and safe and nice to look at than the developer,” said Hollister. “And so, developers are not in the habit of building housing that’s ugly or cheap, or poorly maintained, if they want to protect their investment.”

Hollister noted he believes the aversion extends beyond just affordable housing, but to any kind of dense, multi-family development, due to Connecticut being, “primarily a single-family home state.”  Gara agreed, saying that 8-30g incentivizes high-density because it’s the primary way builders can turn a profit from an affordable project.

“Under 8-30g, the developer has to set aside at least 30% of the housing units as affordable,” said Gara. “But in order to pencil out and make sure that it’s a financially viable project, the developer often has to build much bigger housing developments than the town really wants to see.”

Resistance ultimately comes down to residents wanting to maintain their status quo, said Harrison, who stated many people, “aren’t really in living memory of how much development has actually happened in Connecticut, and how positive it’s generally been for places.”

 “There are a lot of people that are generally resistant to change,” said Harrison. “There’s a perception that if that apartment building comes into your town, there will be a change, and that’s a human thing that everybody deals with.”

When HB 5002 was vetoed by Governor Lamont, the bill contained three stipulations that would directly impact 8-30g; it would allow judges to request “reasonable” attorneys’ fees from municipal commissions if the judge finds they acted in bad faith or attempted to intentionally delay the project, create a lower point total for achieving a moratorium for towns that have met certain state criteria, and provide an additional quarter point towards moratoriums for units “constructed by or in conjunction with a housing authority of a neighboring municipality.”

Hollister, who wrote a two-piece series on what changes he’d recommend be made to HB 5002, said that although he was surprised by Lamont’s veto at the time, he understands it.

“I don’t think anybody expected it,” said Hollister. “In retrospect, I understand what his concerns were.”

Hollister noted that the ultimate bill was proposed and adopted, “very quickly at the end of session,” which he felt Lamont may have been uncomfortable with. He noted that its creation of Fair Share Housing provisions had “a lot of bells and whistles to it,” and that its elimination of parking requirements for all multi-family developments, “scared a lot of people.”

Gara had several complaints about the bill as well, saying that changes such as the Fair Share Housing provisions, which would have provided incentives to towns who took certain measures to meet housing goals prescribed to them by a study the legislature mandated in 2023. The Fair Share Housing provisions, Gara said, would have towns, “stuck in this planning quagmire,” and she disliked how the legislature used grant prioritization as an incentive in the bill for towns to reach various housing goals set by the state.

“What we’ve suggested is that rather than give priority for funding under certain existing programs that are designed to meet other local needs, such as the Clean Water Fund and STEAP (Small Town Economic Assistance Program), that they develop a fund targeted specifically to assisting towns in addressing water and wastewater capacity, particularly small towns,” said Gara.

Where the two sides most certainly disagree is how they’d like to see 8-30g amended in the future. Gara said that COST wants there to be a recognition of more “naturally occurring” affordable housing, or non-deed restricted or publicly subsidized units, in 8-30g’s 10% calculation, and also wants greater protections for environmentally sensitive land areas. 

Allie-Brennan offered a long list of suggestions, including the above, but going even further: He suggested the affordable rate recognized by 8-30g be reduced from 80% area median income to encourage “deeper affordability.” He also would like to limit 8-30g applications to under three stories or less and require 8-30g developers to host public engagement sessions prior to submitting their applications. He requested that municipalities be allowed to waive sidewalk construction in exchange for contributions to local pedestrian infrastructure funds, to give towns more ability to provide sidewalks where they’re needed. Lastly, he’d like to see towns have more authority to reject or modify proposals in the case of “clearly documented safety, egress, or infrastructure zones,” with more flexibility offered to towns “making demonstrated efforts to meet housing goals, particularly those close to the 10% threshold.”

Hollister and Harrison remained firm on their stance that 8-30g should not provide any additional carve-outs. Hollister said that “everybody forgets about” the 1999 blue-ribbon panel, which he sat on. Hollister said it provided towns ample opportunity to come to the table and make “a whole variety of procedural improvements to 8-30g to make it more friendly for municipalities,” ultimately culminating in the signing of Public Act 00-206.

“That blue-ribbon commission had a whole bunch of representation from cities and towns,” said Hollister. “A lot of people, especially in Fairfield County, complain about 8-30g and they forget about that there was a second blue ribbon commission convened specifically to deal with municipal concerns, and their concerns were addressed.”

Hollister said that lowering from the 80% AMI could make 8-30g projects financially unfeasible for some developers and also noted that since 8-30g projects offer affordable units at the lower of either 80% AMI or 80% of state median income, that 8-30g projects are already disproportionately more affordable in the richest parts of the state.

“In Fairfield County, including Bethel, it’s always going to be the state, because the statewide median is so much less than the median area incomes in Fairfield County,” said Hollister. “If you go lower, then you all you’re doing is cutting, cutting off revenue that would be directed to the quality of the development and the quality of life of the people living in there.”

He said the 8-30g standard of substantial public risk to health or safety should already envelop any legitimate safety concerns towns may have, and that “towns have all the authority they need.” He also disagreed with offering towns any more flexibility on hitting their 10% benchmark.

“I’ve heard people say that,” said Hollister. “All that does, is that’s a way to say we would we want more exemptions from 8-30g without building any more housing.”

Hollister also cautioned against making radical changes to 8-30g’s formula for the sake that “dozens and dozens of towns across the state” have developed their own affordable housing growth programs that utilize 8-30g as a benchmark for their own formulas or protocols.

“If you throw out 8-30g, or you substantially amend or repeal it, you’re going to throw those local programs out the window too,” said Hollister. “So that’s a very important consequence that people have to be very concerned about.”

Looking ahead, none of the parties has any idea what the future of HB 5002 will hold. 

Gara said that COST did play a role in providing concerns surrounding the bill to the Governor’s Office prior to Lamont’s veto, but has not been privy to any discussions since. Allie-Brennan said that to the best of his understanding, only legislative leadership has had conversations with the Governor’s Office on the subject and expressed disappointment with the lack of transparency on the conversation. He feared that providing legislators with “something last minute and telling us to kind of swallow it,” could lead to legislative dysfunction. 

 “If we’re able to come to the table and say, here are our concerns, why not do that ahead of time so we can avoid kind of the shit show that happens, before a vote, right?” said Allie-Brennan. “I don’t want to be a ‘no’ on the board, you know, I want to help our caucus [Moderate Caucus] get it to a good place.”

Harrison feared that lawmakers might return with a “watered down” version of HB 5002 and said that 2017’s addition of the moratorium process has already provided enough 8-30g relief to towns. He described any potential efforts to significantly dilute HB 5002 as a “tragedy,” and that the state needs “bold, consistent action,” across several legislative cycles to reverse decades of underbuilding housing. He also said that the “loud voices against” dramatic changes in state housing policy are not representative of the larger population.

“This issue is not going to go away,” said Harrison. “And there are plenty of, unfortunately, people in local and state government that seem to want it to go away, or assume it will go away, but it won’t. As long as people are up there representing their communities, there’s going to be a desperate need for bold action in housing.”

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