Affordable Housing Proponents to Launch Media Blitz Supporting New Strategy of Land Trust Collaboration

Beginning in early January, a consortium of northwestern Connecticut housing trusts and land trusts will be releasing a series of social media ads marketing their new strategy of combining affordable housing and land conservation initiatives. Documents obtained from the Litchfield County Center for Housing Opportunity (LCCHO), which is spearheading the effort, spell out a series of strategies and steps the group is advancing, targeting Boards of Selectmen, Planning & Zoning Commissions, Land Trusts, and Housing Trusts in eight northwestern Connecticut towns, including Goshen, Cornwall, Warren, Falls Village, Kent, Norfolk, Sharon, and Salisbury.
Among the stated goals of the campaign is dispelling “the notion that affordable housing groups and conservation organizations are at odds with each other”. Affordable housing groups tend to favor such initiatives as expansion of municipal infrastructure (e.g., water and sewer) that would increase the feasibility of higher density affordable housing, while land conservation groups are dedicated to preserving open space in perpetuity. By combining the two initiatives, the group hopes to improve its political leverage to obtain increased state funding and legislative changes supporting their goals.
The group is calling on land trusts to consider the ability of land parcels to accommodate affordable housing as well as conservation, when planning new projects. “If land is being donated, ask the donors if they would be interested in a portion of the site being utilized for affordable housing (when appropriate) and make introductions to the local housing organization or approach potential donors together.” The group states that these initiatives would apply to new projects only, and not currently held land trust properties. Land trusts could face significant legal challenges if assets donated for the purpose of perpetual conservation as open space were to be diverted into any type of development, according to a State legislator familiar with the tactics being used by affordable housing groups around the state.
Planning & Zoning Commissions (PZC’s) are being asked to become active advocates for affordable housing initiatives. The group instructs PZC’s to “Communicate within public meetings the importance of a healthy balance of both affordable housing and conservation in every town.” They want the commissions to include housing and land trust groups in development of their POCD updates (Plans of Conservation & Development) and to organize annual events where the groups can tout their successes. They are also asking the commissions to “pursue / support local infrastructure improvements which strengthen town centers and increase the feasibility of affordable housing (e.g., sewer systems)”.
Boards of Selectmen are also being asked to actively advance the group’s agenda, specifically calling on them to prepare letters to support funding requests for affordable housing developments, consider town ordinances that create a land acquisition fund to acquire land for collaborative affordable housing and conservation efforts, support and participate in regional efforts to plan and implement affordable housing and conservation strategies, advocate for state policy/funding to support accomplishing both goals, and pursue/support local infrastructure improvements which strengthen town centers and increase the feasibility of affordable housing.
Many small towns like Goshen have argued that they lack the infrastructure needed to accommodate these plans. In addition, when considering existing affordable housing, the current state definition does not include naturally affordable housing, which meets affordability criteria but isn’t deed-restricted for 40 years. Inclusion would reduce the calculated need for additional affordable housing in a number of these towns.
The Litchfield County Center for Housing Opportunity is headed by Jocelyn Ayers, who was formerly associated with the Northwest Hills Council of Governments (NHCOG), where she played a central role in the development of Affordable Housing Plans for several northwestern Connecticut towns, including Goshen. Goshen’s plan was unanimously rejected by the town’s Planning & Zoning Commission in 2023 for inclusion in the town’s POCD, following a public hearing at which the plan was attacked as including misleading data overstating the town’s needs for affordable housing. One of several items questioned for accuracy was the assertion that nearly 30% of Goshen households were cost-burdened, paying over 30% of their income for housing, the data ignored the facts that only about half of Goshen properties had mortgages at all and that 25% of Goshen residences are seasonal, and therefore none of those properties were included in the census statistics. When all properties were included, cost-burdened households were fewer than 10%.