Lamont extols housing bill, brushes over past veto

Gov. Ned Lamont praised Connecticut’s sweeping housing legislation on Thursday for empowering towns and suburbs — just over a year after he vetoed an earlier iteration of the bill that he said failed to do so.

At Connecticut’s annual housing conference, the governor referenced conversations with small-town mayors and first selectmen who were eager to build additional housing. Though he joked that Connecticut’s suburbs “can be a little grumpier” than cities when it comes to housing development, he cited efforts to convert suburban shopping centers into housing units.

Lamont vetoed the original bill last June, arguing that it did not have enough “buy-in” from towns and suburbs. He later signed a revised version of the bill into law after a special session last November.

“Some of the people that complained about the housing bill was sort of ‘Not in my backyard’ and ‘Stay away from the green grass, I want to keep it green,’” Lamont said at the conference, held at New Haven’s Omni Hotel. “Well, here in New Haven, and here in most of our towns and cities, we’re taking an old parking lot and reimagining it for housing. We’re taking an office building that’s only 30% occupied and converting offices back into housing.”

The housing law requires towns to create housing growth plans, expands Connecticut’s fair rent commissions and eliminates most off-street parking requirements for small housing developments. The 107-page legislation includes many other provisions, including a ban on “hostile architecture,” or structures that make it difficult for people experiencing homelessness to lie down.

The law aims to address Connecticut’s housing shortage and affordability crises. Connecticut is one of just three states that have lost housing units per capita since 2020. A Pew Charitable Trusts report last month found that high housing costs are driving over 20% of poverty in Connecticut.

Pete Harrison, a housing advocate who moderated a conference panel about the housing bill, described the wide-ranging legislation as “a little bit of a Rube Goldberg machine.” 

“But really what it is at the core is a promise from the governor, from the legislature, from all the stakeholders in this room, and elsewhere, that we need to build more homes and more kinds of homes,” Harrison added.

The conference speakers brushed past or did not acknowledge Lamont’s veto of the original bill.

“You maybe heard there’s a little back and forth on the housing bill,” the governor quipped, right before praising small towns for “overwhelmingly” taking the lead on housing development since the legislation was signed into law.

Harrison noted at the start of his panel that the law had a “very colorful story” of getting passed, adding, “it’s neither here nor there.”

Cathryn Vaulman, the governor’s director of communications, said Lamont didn’t mention the veto explicitly in order to avoid giving a “play-by-play” of the bill’s passage. She also noted that some town mayors and first selectmen who opposed the initial housing legislation support the revised version that the governor signed into law.

Other speakers praised Lamont’s approach to housing, citing the housing law and state initiatives like the Time to Own program, which helps some first-time homebuyers cover down payments and closing costs.

“Nothing that I have said could have happened without the leadership of my boss, the vision that he had, and … the financial support,” Housing Commissioner Seila Mosquera-Bruno said.

Lamont, Mosquera-Bruno and other speakers alluded to headwinds that have made housing development more challenging, including tariffs and high interest rates. Mosquera-Bruno urged the developers in the audience to brainstorm innovative ways to reduce their construction costs.

“Every dollar that we do not justify is a person that we can’t provide housing for,” she said.

Lamont is up for reelection in November. His opponent, Republican Ryan Fazio, has identified housing affordability as a key issue and called for major changes to the housing law.

In a phone interview, Fazio said the law “undermines local control and also doesn’t improve housing affordability and availability.”

“I have not gone to a single small town or medium-sized town and heard any positive feedback about 8002,” he said, referring to the legislation. “All of this belies reality, and it’s a product of the fact that the governor wasn’t an assertive leader on this topic.”

Moments after Lamont stepped off stage, Mosquera-Bruno called him back. She told him some attendees had asked her if Connecticut would continue to invest the same resources in housing in the future. 

“Housing’s going to be our No. 1 priority,” he replied.