It’s hard to remember a time when so many elected officials so eagerly voted against the interest of the very towns they are supposed to represent.
But we will die a thousand times holding our breath for any real explanation as to how this housing bill is good for Branford. Or Guilford. Or Madison. Or really any town with under 100,000 people.
Governor Lamont waited until after the municipal elections to even present the bill. No Republicans were even part of the discussions. The House quickly passed it, and at 1 AM on a Friday morning, so did the Senate.
Its another trash ‘affordable housing’ bill, although it goes to great lengths to delete the word affordable in more places than its predecessor bill, one that passed with huge Democratic support but was then vetoed by Lamont.
Lamont pushed this new bill as one that incentivizes towns to take steps to do…something. Here’s a tip: when something needs incentives to get people to do it, it sucks.
It includes much of the same language that took power away from local towns in the last bill. It gives developers more tools to push projects through Planning and Zoning.
Developers can now build without local Zoning demanding parking requirements, any commercial lot can develop up to 9 residential units without a public hearing, Branford still can’t get a moratorium from the developers because we don’t get to count our actual affordable housing in our affordable housing total.
Everyone in town is complaining that there is too many apartment complexes, although its clear that Robin Comey, Christine Cohen and Moira Rader, the state representatives of Branford, didn’t hear any of it. All voted for the bill.
And we are still waiting on how this bill makes Branford better. How this bill, giving more leeway to developers and less to local town zoning boards, will help Branford, or Guilford, or Madison residents.
And don’t tell me it adds affordable housing for our own people, as we already know that a lie, having witnessed the last project they supported, Parkside, immediately hand out 40 vouchers to low income New Haven residents.
What we are seeing is the mindless nonsense that accompanies one party rule. Lamont wasn’t stupid: he saw the blue wave of voters showing up in elections where they likely had no idea who the candidates were, and picked a color based on anti-Trump sentiment. Lamont knows next year, the national mid-terms, will be even worse; the odds of any state Democrat losing their seat is somewhere around 3%. Most likely won’t have an opponent, not based on the merits of their accomplishments, but because a rapidly growing number of low-information voters.
The byproduct of one party rule is rarely good, and we are seeing it now. And what will be created is not communities, but a new level of transient resident, ones that move to town for a few years and move on. It does nothing to help the actual longterm residents of town or long-term housing: developers have figured out apartments make far more sense than condo’s or single family homes, and the rush will be on to see 4-story, 150 unit developments structures go up, furthering the growing generation of residents who will never actually buy property.
And I don’t even need to prove this with words. A 5-minute drive around town does that for me.
After all, why put up 4 homes on 2 acres when the Democrats just gave you a free pass to put 18 rental units in the same space? And removed the need for a public hearing. And made it harder for neighbors to petition against it.
And the next time someone asks the question I get everyday, why are we allowing so many apartments in town, I’ll answer with one clear fact: Because you voted for it.