Opinion: 8-30g Is Long Overdue For The Chopping Block

The following opinion essay is by Meghan McCloat, a Republican running for the state's 134th House seat:

As the countless applications for 8-30g affordable housing developments continue to influx
Fairfield’s Town Plan and Zoning Commission (TPZ), I continue to remain astounded at the
levels to which common-sense safety, conservation, and social impact seemingly fly out the
window at the mercy of this antiquated statute. 8-30g, Connecticut’s affordable housing law,
essentially allows developers to build wherever they want and bypass local zoning laws that you
and I have to adhere to.

8-30g, in essence, is the golden ticket for commercial developers who are looking to build and
operate out-of-scale housing developments without being required to comply with zoning
regulations which would limit the profit returns on their investment. So in layman's terms, its the
cash cow that every organized developer plans for in hopes of operating a perpetual profit
generating monstrosity, under the guise of ‘doing good’ for the state (well at least for 30 percent of their tenants for a few short years).

8-30g is a 30 year old statute that had all the best intentions when enacted in the 1990s, and
aimed to provide sustainable affordable housing offerings to the most vulnerable in our state.
Sounds good to me right? But, it had one major issue that continues to plague CT Town’s today.
It was designed to fail.

I am not suggesting that legislators intentionally chose unrealistic terms and pathways to
achieve moratorium, but the reality is, that it has been abundantly clear for many years now,
that the structure of 8-30g was not achieving the goal it was enacted to achieve. 8-30g has been
failing in application practically since it was enacted, and keeping the legislation with the
constraints that it currently has does nothing but kick the can down the road to the next term of
legislators to pick up the tough task of scrapping the law, and starting from scratch with the data
we now have to craft legislation that actually works. It sounds harsh, but it’s time we face reality.
It’s bad law. And bad laws need to be repealed. In fact, bad laws don’t go away unless they are
repealed. And laws are repealed in the United States of America, every day.

Some political opponents have called the calls to repeal 8-30g “unrealistic campaign theatrics.”
But frankly, I’m confused how anybody can be in opposition to 8-30g’s application and not
realize that the only legal avenue to change its detrimental impact from continuing to burden
Towns and communities, is to repeal the entire law.

Sure, we can promise to amend it with some more sunset provisions, moratorium extensions,
and some may even suggest tax incentives in additional legislation to offset the impact of 8-30g.
But that’s a whole lot of skirting the issue, trying to lessen the hit, and not getting to the root of
the issue. Enough with this sacred protection of a law that has been failing for years, and let’s
start actually doing the necessary work to make a new law that actually works to achieve
sustainable affordability in Connecticut. A new law that actually promotes a path to homeownership and permanent residency, rather than unsustainable reduced rates that are not in line with median incomes within the zip codes in which they’re rented.

Here’s a radical idea.. Let’s make a new law that actually works for the State of Connecticut. A
new law that actually has input from both sides of the aisle that addresses an issue that both
sides know is a reality we are facing. A new law that doesn’t benefit profit-seeking developers
but benefits the residential taxpayers of the State of Connecticut and the residents that need
access to affordable housing.

8-30g is on developers’ radars all over our State. In my own district a recent proposal for a 100-
unit high rise unit was proposed, against all zoning regulations, to construct next to a protected
watershed reservoir that provides the entire water sourcing for the City of Bridgeport. According
to Aquarion, the storage capacity of the Hemlocks Reservoir is 3.8 billion gallons and it collects
water from a 5.2-square mile watershed. And to make matters worse, it passed the
Conservation review in the Town of Fairfield. The same reservoir that I grew up driving next to
on Black Rock Turnpike with posted signs for exorbitant fines if you were caught parking,
fishing, hiking or anything that could possibly jeopardize the purity of the water source, is now
advancing in the process to host to a 100 unit facility on a parcel of land that’s too small to
house more than 2 single family structures if required to adhere to the zoning laws in our Town.
It’s 5 miles away from a railroad transit line and it’s about 3 miles away from the closest bus
stop, so it’s hardly ideal for transit accessibility for income adjusted tenants. It poses
environmental threats to safe sewage disposal and watershed impact which has as a potential
to contaminate drinking water for tens of thousands of residents, and it’s directly fronting a state
designated scenic road that has been on historic registries in Fairfield County for decades. But
sure, it’s the perfect spot for this proposal, according to our 8-30g constraints, which basically
dictate that place doesn’t matter.

And there lies the issue. The moment legislation allows ‘place to not matter’ in land use, or
arguable abuse; the moment citizens of this State, taxpayers of our communities, and families in
our neighborhoods, have lost their fundamental right to property ownership and maintenance
which is free from governmental interference.

Accepting the reality that 8-30g is a bad law isn’t ‘theatrical,’ it’s actually pulling the curtain back
on the smoke and mirror show that’s been protecting commercial developers at the detriment of
local communities and taxpayers for 30 years. The only thing ‘theatrical’ about calls to repeal
this law is that by refusing to do it, every election term, we continue to stage the most anti-
climatic encore that frankly, CT audience members are just tired of paying the ticket price to
watch over and over again. Some shows go off stage for a reason..let’s stop the lackluster
revivals of 8-30g and stop pretending we can bandaid a law that was broken from its initial
drafting.

This next legislative session, it’s time for 8-30g’s final bow and it’s time we propose fresh, new
legislation that actually works.