HARTFORD, CT – A diverse coalition of legislators, local elected officials, and advocates called Desegregate Connecticut came together Thursday at the Legislative Office Building to call for smarter growth in Connecticut’s cities and towns.
The coalition, which represents over 80 organizations and has a mission of tackling segregation in land-use law, held a news conference to push for the passage of the “Work Live Ride” bill during the current legislative session.
“We’ve talked about building on some of the successes we had last year, getting various pieces of the previous bill passed. We are looking to move forward with a bill this year that will really increase housing, and be important to the future of Connecticut,” Rep. Eleni Kavros DeGraw, D-Avon, said in her opening remarks.
Last year, the state legislature passed SB 998, which established and funded the Office of Responsible Growth inside the state Office of Policy and Management.
The Work Live Ride bill would designate qualifying municipalities as Transit Oriented Communities (TOCs), which would make them eligible for state funds through the Office of Responsible Growth. The bill would encourage local and state planning that is centered around existing bus and rail service.
Bloomfield Mayor Danielle Wong, a Democrat, spoke about how critical the Work Live Ride legislation would be to her hometown of Bloomfield.
“I’ve seen firsthand how these concepts can come to life and benefit communities,” Wong said. “They increase opportunities by increasing access to jobs, education and healthcare, by lowering transportation costs, relieving traffic congestion and increasing economic development through investments in transportation infrastructure.
Wong also said she was interested in designing with the preservation of cultural identity in mind.
“These developments and communities can be designed and customized in ways that respect and preserve the communities who choose to embrace them,” she said.
Thursday’s news conference comes a month after a report was released by the Office of Policy and Management that found that Connecticut is one of the most racially and economically segregated states in the country.
Asked if there was a connection between segregation in Connecticut and the lack of affordable housing, Sen. Saud Anwar, D-South Windsor, didn’t mince words.
“Fifty percent of all African Americans and Hispanic Americans in the state live on 2% of the land. Two thirds of African Americans and Hispanic Americans in the state live in low-opportunity areas,” Anwar said. “The chances of moving from a low-opportunity area to a high-opportunity area are the lowest in New England. The American Dream is alive and well in Canada. It is no longer alive and well in Connecticut, which means if you are born poor, you will die poor.”
CT169 Strong, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to local zoning control, takes issue with the Work Live Ride bill, calling it an “end run” around local subdivision regulations and dimensional standards.
The group released a statement:
“The 2024 Work Live Ride bill appears to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The legislation appears intentionally vague as to the requirements of density and number of units of development to deflect from the hand-out that this bill appears to be to developers. The bill apparently, once again, uses as of right development, ending the public hearing process.
“Our lawmakers should be creating laws that aid and empower our towns and provide more equitable allocations of state and federal grants, vouchers and low income housing tax credits to communities of all sizes to spur affordable development. Instead this bill removes local control, limits funding resources to communities unless they relent to onerous state mandated guidelines, thus disincentivizing towns from affordable development.”
