One eastern Connecticut lawmaker said state pressure to create affordable housing where people can more easily commute to and from work will drain local economies, not bolster them.

State Rep. Doug Dubitsky, R-Chaplin, was among those in the Planning and Development Committee’s Republican minority who spoke against the bill that would incentivize the creation of affordable housing in and adjacent to towns with regular train and bus routes.

The bill made its way out of the committee anyway. Legislative staff said the committee voted 12-9 in a mostly party line vote, with Stamford state Rep. David Michel joining Republicans in opposition. It goes next to the House.

Towns that put “transit-oriented development” districts into their zoning regulations become eligible for expert planning guidance from the state as well as funding for certain infrastructure programs like water and sewer system expansion and the remediation of polluted sites. In the carrot-and-stick analogy describing a blend of reward and punishment, that would be the carrot.

Towns that don’t update their zoning regulations to include more affordable options slip to the bottom of the priority list for those grants. That’s the punishing stick.

Dubitsky said his district, with eight towns including the distressed communities of Chaplin, Sprague and parts of Plainfield and Norwich, accounts for a disproportionate number of the 25 communities identified by the state as being the most financially strapped.

“You stick a bunch of low-income people into a poor town, you’re not getting any economic boon. You’re just getting more poor people,” he said.

The bill is being promoted by DesegregateCT, the grassroots organization behind what they describe as the “work, live, ride” movement. The group said it’s so expensive to rent or buy a home in Connecticut that many workers can’t afford to live near their jobs, many small businesses and manufacturers can’t fill open positions, and many families are priced out of homeownership.

But if the cost of housing is a problem in the state, Dubitsky said it’s not his problem.

“We have apparently an affordable housing problem in this state,” the state representative said. “But you know what? We do not have an affordable housing problem in my town, or in my district. Or in many of the other towns around this state. We have plenty of affordable housing. We have plenty of places to build housing if you want it. We don’t need an affordable housing plan. We don’t need this bill forcing us to do what cities need to do."

Pete Harrison, director of DesegregateCT, addressed supporters in an email update after Friday’s vote to applaud the affirmative vote and to rally support for the next steps.

“It is incredibly hard to get a statewide zoning bill out of committee,” he said. “But we're not out of the woods yet.”

He told The Day he was not surprised but was “certainly disappointed that Rep. Dubitsky continues to deny that the housing crisis is real, especially in his district.”

In Chaplin, 3.3% of housing meets the state definition of affordable. That’s how many units are either subsidized by the government or deed restricted so households making less than 80% of the median income in that area an afford them.

In Windham County, where Chaplin is located, the area median income is $89,800. In most of New London County, the area median income is $102,700.

A home is considered affordable when those living there don’t pay more than 30% of their income on housing-related expenses. Advocates describe households paying more than that as “cost burdened.”

Harrison pointed to data compiled by the housing advocacy group Partnership for Strong Communities showing that renters account for 10% of households in Chaplin. Of them, 71% spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs.

Statewide, Partnership for Strong Communities puts the percentage of cost-burdened rental households at 48%.

“If he thinks affordable housing is a burden for towns, I suggest he talk to some of his constituents to see what a burden not having it is,” Harrison said.

State Rep. Christine Conley, D-Groton, in a phone interview, said she voted in favor of sending the bill on to the General Assembly. She called the lack of affordable housing “a huge problem” in the district encompassing her town as well as New London. She pointed to many large homes in the district as well as newer apartment complexes.

“They’re lovely, but they’re out of the price range for a lot of folks who are starting out and they’re also out of the range for a lot of seniors,” she said.

The idea of planning for transit-oriented development is a timely one in Groton, where a study about extending Shore Line East commuter rail service from New London to Westerly includes a possible stop somewhere along Route 1. The area is currently dominated by strip malls and large parking lots.

She said rail service, more housing and the influx of workers brought in to help deliver multibillion-dollar submarine contracts for Electric Boat all go together. She, like state Rep. Aundre Bumgardner, D-Groton, is calling for a mixed-use focus that offers both commercial and residential space while expanding train service.

City versus country

The bill, which Harrison said applies to all but six of the 169 municipalities in the state, encourages qualifying towns to create their own transit-oriented development districts with more houses or apartments than might otherwise be allowed. Then the bill requires a certain percentage of the units to be deed restricted to remain affordable to lower-income renters and buyers for 40 years, depending on the strength of the housing market and the available resources for lower-income families.

Dubitsky said there is housing in his mostly small, rural towns that’s already affordable without government intervention. He questioned why a developer would want to build there and why people would want to move there.

“When you come out into eastern Connecticut, you come out into the boonies,” he said. “We’ve already got our share of poor people.”

Census data puts the population in Chaplin at 2,208 and the number of housing units at 893. The zoning officer and building official work by appointment only, according to the town website. Dubitsky said the town does not have the resources to accommodate development.

Dubitsky framed much of his position during deliberations against that of Democratic state Rep. Roland Lamar of New Haven.

Dubitsky said large cities have more resources than rural towns, from paid staff members to infrastructure.

“They also have sewers in New Haven,” he said of the type of public infrastructure that makes development easier and more cost effective. “The nearest sewer has got to be eight miles away from my town.”

For Lamar, the state has a responsibility to step in to address inaction at the local level.

“We didn’t accidentally end up one of the most segregated – economically and racially – states in the country,” he said.

Factors contributing to segregation include the rise of single-family zoning in the 1920s, the denial of mortgages for those in predominantly Black areas in the wake of the Great Depression and World War II, subsequent government investment in the mostly white suburbs, and a push for urban renewal that resulted in the demolition of many neighborhoods where low-income families lived.

Lamar said the response by many towns was “woefully inadequate” to a state directive requiring municipalities to adopt an affordable housing plan and update it every five years. The deadline was June 1.

Less than half of the state’s cities and towns made the deadline, according to a list from the state Office of Policy and Management.

The ongoing lack of housing affordability “begs for some level of state guidance and intervention,” according to Lamar. While he said the bill does not create enough change fast enough for him, he described it as a necessary first step.

State Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, voted in favor of the bill.

In filing his votes with the committee clerk after the meeting, he described his support as a way to “further the conversation about affordable housing in the state.”

“I’m not going to be disparaging about anybody, but the arguments that I heard this time are the same arguments we heard two years ago and I’m not sure we’ve made progress,” he said.

Two previous iterations of the transit-oriented development bill have failed.

He said housing is unaffordable in enough places that the state needs to step in.

“Not my preferred path, but clearly if the idea of local control and municipal solutions worked, we would not be where we are today,” he said.

But state Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, who represents the epicenter of the movement opposing affordable housing zoning reform, said it’s not just housing that’s too expensive in Connecticut.

He blamed lawmakers.

“We pile taxes and fees and bureaucracy one on top of another,” he said.

“I do not believe the solution to the problems of this state are to take away more power and control from our localities and vest it, concentrate it, here in this building, here in the state Capitol,” he said. “I think there is a better way.”

Both Democrats and Republicans during deliberations acknowledged the need for more clarity on terms and responsibilities not sufficiently delineated in the bill.

Planning and Development Committee co-chairman and state Sen. MD Rahman, D-Manchester, called the bill a “work in progress.”

An immigrant from Bangladesh, Rahman recalled taking three buses to get to work upon his arrival in the United States 25 years ago because he couldn’t find an affordable place to live in a more convenient location.

“Let’s work together,” he said. “This bill, it’s still a work in progress.”

e.regan@theday.com