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Good morning!
Last week, the Regional Plan Association hosted the first of forums with gubernatorial candidates to talk about their plans for housing and transportation ahead of the August primaries. RPA spoke with the Democratic candidates incumbent Gov. Ned Lamont and state Rep. Josh Elliott on Tuesday.
Elliott’s pitch all along has been as a more progressive candidate pushing for change from the status quo. Part of his critique of Lamont has been over the governor’s veto of an omnibus housing bill last year. It wasn’t surprising that Elliott brought up this critique early on at the forum.
He said Lamont “didn't even know what was in the bill,” which he said was clear from the governor’s press conference when he announced his veto.
The first question Lamont received during the forum was about the veto, and he repeated what he’s said before: that the bill passed during last year’s special session in November was ultimately stronger because it had buy-in from towns.
Lamont also touted the progress Connecticut has made toward building more housing over the past few years, and said he’s running again because the state has still “got a ways to go.”
Elliott said if it were up to him, he’d support getting rid of minimum off-street parking requirements, which have been shown to make it harder to build housing. He also wants to make it easier to develop accessory dwelling units, enable rezoning to shift commercial buildings to residential and reform the state fire code to make it easier to build what’s known as “middle housing.”
Middle housing is a term typically used to refer to multifamily housing other than large apartment complexes — that includes duplexes, triplexes and cottage courts. Connecticut has had a couple of political battles over recent years regarding its fire code and housing.
Asked about further changes to zoning or the fire code, Lamont pointed to some of the accomplishments that have already occurred under his administration. Although fire code changes were rolled back in the last legislative session, the governor said he wants to make it easier and cheaper to put in manufactured housing, or housing that’s built in a factory then delivered to a site.
He said his administration has also already made it easier — particularly in the special session housing bill — to turn abandoned commercial buildings into residences, and he pledged to ramp up public transportation development so more people want to live near train and bus stations.
Sen. Ryan Fazio, the Republican candidate for governor, is scheduled to have his conversation Thursday.
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