With the dust settled on this year’s legislative session, stakeholders on both sides of the aisle agree that this year was a quiet one in terms of housing legislation. While Democratic lawmakers and pro-tenant rights groups introduced and supported a wide swath of bills on the topic of housing, almost none of them were passed.
“To be honest with you, the legislature accomplished hardly anything on housing this year,” said Luke Melonakos-Harrison, Vice President and Political Director of the Connecticut Tenants Union. “Our feelings are disappointed but not surprised.”
On the flip side, Republicans and landlord advocacy groups felt vindicated by the lull in meaningful housing legislation passed this session.
“I would say the right word to describe it is greatly relieved,” said Bob DeCosmo, President of the Connecticut Property Owners Alliance. “We’re glad it’s over.”
Melonakos-Harrison said that the housing bill passed this session to provide relief to tenants was HB 5474.
“The one thing I can say we got out of this legislative session was a 45 day notice for rent increases, which is something we didn’t really put any energy into pushing for, because it’s not really that meaningful,” said Melonakos-Harrison.
HB 5474 was easily the most significant housing bill to be passed this year. It mandates landlords to provide 45 day notices for rent increases, as opposed to prior law which didn’t stipulate the amount of notice required, while also incentivizing municipalities to approve “middle housing,” or lighter-density housing arrangements. The bill touched on several other housing-related issues, such as the conversion of nursing homes to housing or the ability of municipalities to limit AirBnBs, but none of these proposals went far enough to placate the demands of tenants’ rights advocates.
Melonakos-Harrison said that the bill he and other tenants’ rights activists most wanted to see passed was SB 143, which would have largely banned “no-fault” evictions, or the ability of landlords to evict tenants for any reason upon the end of their lease. Melonakos-Harrison said the Tenants Union was instrumental in introducing the bill, and that it came about after meeting with the Housing Committee Co-Chairs last fall. Melonakos-Harrison said the Tenants Union cooperated with the Co-Chairs to propose the bill, while the Connecticut Fair Housing Center drafted the bill’s language.
Melonakos-Harrison said the Tenants Union valued the bill so highly due to the rate at which he and other tenants have seen no-fault evictions be used as a retaliatory measure, most often in the case of landlords using it against tenants who raise health or code violation complaints. Melonakos-Harrison also alleged that it has been commonly used by larger leasing companies to evict entire buildings so that they can make renovations and put the apartments back on the market at a higher price.
“To put it simply, it really emerged from the experiences of our members facing retaliatory evictions and evictions as a tool to clear people out and dramatically raise rent,” said Melonakos-Harrison.
DeCosmo pushed back against the notion that no-fault evictions are only used maliciously and said that they are one of a decreasing number of tools landlords have to remove problematic tenants. DeCosmo went as far as to say that passage of the bill could even hurt tenants in some instances.
“When you put a bill like just cause eviction on the books, that doesn’t help tenants it hurts, because it just got a lot harder for marginal tenants to get an apartment,” said DeCosmo. “I don’t think a lot of the people that are pushing some of the policy understand the dynamics of what’s involved with managing and maintaining and operating apartment units.”
DeCosmo said that since Connecticut already makes eviction such a difficult process for landlords, that landlords are more predisposed not to extend leases to tenants who may have poor landlord recommendations or bad credit. He said that removing the ability for landlords to remove tenants for no cause upon the expiration of their lease would only sway that calculation further against what he deemed “marginal tenants.”
Another bill the two held divergent opinions on was HB 5242, a bill that would have largely removed the ability of landlords to deny tenants based on their criminal records, a bill that died in the Committee on Appropriations. While proponents of the bill thought it a necessary step to help reintegrate reformed criminals into society, landlords thought it to be an infringement on their rights as property owners, and saw it as the state mandating them to take undue risks on their investments.
“Our tenants expect us to do a screening so they don’t want, like, a young single mom with a couple of kids, doesn’t want us to rent the apartment across the hall to a pedophile,” said DeCosmo. “Or you just got convicted of arson and we’re gonna let you in our building?”
It’s worth noting that the proposed bill would not have exempted landlords from denying housing to pedophiles, although arson was indeed a crime that landlords could not factor into their decision.
The most expansive bill proposed by Democratic lawmakers by far this session was SB 6, which would have established a Housing Growth Fund which would have incentivized municipalities to approve housing development, a tax credit program that would have incentivized the conversion of commercial buildings into housing, and would have drastically increased the power and jurisdiction of Housing Authorities, allowing them to essentially act as housing developers in their own right.
The last point was especially contentious for Republican lawmakers, who argued that such an expansion of the Housing Authorities power would undermine municipalities ability to maintain their zoning laws.
“I just find it to be shocking stuff,” said Sen. Rob Sampson (R-Wolcott). “In many ways, the state government is trying to compete with private industry in so many different areas.”
Melanakos-Harrison said he appreciated the work of Housing Committee Co-Chair to try and rally support for SB 6, and the gesture of Democrats amending the no-fault eviction language into the bill and nearly unanimously co-sponsoring it.
“They were sort of demonstrating their support, and I think Marilyn Moore deserves credit for that, building up that support in the Senate,” said Melanakos-Harrison.
While all of these bills may have been popular among Democrats and tenants rights advocates, and terrifying for Republicans and landlords, with the Democrats maintaining a trifecta, a majority in the House and Senate with a Democratic governor, it’s worth asking; how did almost none of these bills pass?
“I’ll let them try to explain why they couldn’t get it done,” said Melonakos-Harrison.
While Rep. Felipe agreed to an interview, he could not be reached in time for comment. A legislative aide from Sen. Moore’s office notified Inside Investigator that she was away on travels and could also not be reached in time. Sampson believes it was both the result of Democratic lawmakers having too many initiatives to pass in a short session, and the ability of Republicans to effectively filibuster on the floor.
“They were trying to bite off too much, they had too many initiatives,” said Sampson. “They could never seem to get their priorities in order between both chambers, and we were extremely effective in Senate Republicans this year by taking up time and negotiating each day.”
Melanakos-Harrison thought that many Democratic lawmakers were simply too swayed by the effective lobbying of landlord organizations across the state.
“They were clearly in a lot of legislators’ ears,” said Melanakos-Harrison. “I think they’re getting more organized.”
Melanakos-Harrison said that groups such as the Connecticut Apartment Association and Connecticut Property Owners Association were much more active during this year’s legislature than in years past because they felt especially threatened by the bills being proposed. This idea was validated by DeCosmo himself.
“I started last year trying to bang the drum to say, ‘Hey guys, look, we’ve got a huge problem here in Connecticut,” said DeCosmo. “We’ve got a network of legislators that we talk to on a regular basis and now we’ll be transitioning into trying to help these guys get re-elected come November.”
DeCosmo noted these legislators were on “both sides of the aisle.” Some of the Democratic names mentioned were Reps. Larry Butler (D-Waterbury), Ron Napoli Jr. (D-Waterbury), Christopher Rosario (D-Bridgeport), Michael D. Quinn (D- Meriden) and Michael Digiovoncarlo (D-Waterbury).
In spite of the disagreements between tenants and landowners, Democrats and Republicans, one issue that all sides seemed to agree on was a need for increased punishments of absentee landlords. Both Sampson and DeCosmo said they would support future bills that would increase punishment for landlords who ignore code and health violations.
“Let’s go after the bad actors in the business because they’re the ones that are giving everybody a bad reputation,” said DeCosmo.
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