P&Z Wants Town Financial Support To Increase Affordable Housing

GREENWICH, CT — In an effort to raise the percentage of affordable housing in Greenwich and meet state mandates, Planning & Zoning officials went before the Board of Estimate and Taxation last week and asked for the town's financial help.

Bob Barolak, an alternate on the Planning & Zoning Commission, walked the BET through a presentation that explained how the town can increase its affordable housing. Barolak is a junior member of the P&Z Commission. He has spent most of his 40-year career in affordable housing finance, with the last 20 years focused on affordable housing development, ownership, and operation. Barolak was joined by P&Z Chair Margarita Alban.

According to the 8-30G state statute, municipalities in Connecticut must have at least 10 percent of housing units be classified as affordable housing. Currently, Greenwich sits at 5.4 percent. Barolak explained that the statute empowers developers to override zoning rules and take local control away from local officials.

"I believe Greenwich should inject some town money into supporting the development of affordable housing. We should do that because if we put town money in, we would dramatically accelerate our progress towards the 10 percent minimum the state law establishes. In the process, we would increase our control over what gets built in our town," Barolak said. He noted that there are four big projects coming in on the docket for P&Z that would "all of which would increase the density in their neighborhoods well above what is allowed in zoning, all of which would increase traffic."

"If we can develop a program of funding affordable housing with Greenwich money, we've got a powerful tool to help moderate the 8-30G developments that we've seen and will see in the future," he said.

Funding from the town could come through donations, developer impact fees or bond proceeds, Barolak said.

The P&Z Commission is currently working with the Representative Town Meeting on potentially establishing a Housing Trust Fund, which would be another tool in the tool belt for Greenwich to reach the 10 percent mandate. The fund would predominantly be made up of donations. P&Z is holding a public workshop on the trust fund on July 28 at 7 p.m. via Zoom. For more information, click here.

But Barolak believes the most effective and powerful tool would be to use Tax Increment Financing, or TIF.

New developments increase property taxes incrementally, Barolak said. TIF effectively allows a developer to keep some of that increment at no direct cost to the town.

"The idea behind TIF is to encourage that kind of development by allowing the developer to keep the benefit of some portion of that increment. How much they keep is entirely up to us," Barolak said.

"I think this could be a very powerful tool for us to achieve the goal. We need to accelerate our goal to get to 10 percent. When we get to 10 percent, we no longer have to worry about 8-30G. We can control our destiny and our development. It mitigates potential future penalties that could be enacted by subsequent legislation [from Hartford]. Doing so, it increases our control over the scale of these developments and also where they get built."

Barolak and Alban said they wanted to hear what the BET thought. Overwhelmingly, board members supported the concept.

Board member Andy Duus called Barolak's presentation "enlightening." Laura Erickson also praised Barolak.

"We're going to have to use all of the tools at our exposal and get creative. I think this is a great example of getting creative," she said.

Board member David Weisbrod said the presentation was "great," and that "it's time to get into specifics."

Beth Krumeich said increasing affordable housing is beneficial for all.

"The opportunity to create more housing for our town employees is critical. If we can combine that with addressing affordable housing, I think it's a win-win," she said.

BET Chair Karen Fassuliotis said the plan "sounds great in concept," but she wants more details on financial and neighborhood impact.