🔒Lamont signs housing bill into law

After unexpectedly vetoing its predecessor, Gov. Ned Lamont on Wednesday officially signed into law a controversial housing bill approved during a recent legislative special session. The bill, known as House Bill 8002, is now Public Act 25-1. It requires towns to create housing growth plans, changes minimum off-street parking requirements, expands fair rent commissions and incentivizes towns to take steps to allow more housing, among other measures. The intent of the bill, which was passed overwhelmingly in both the House and Senate during a special session held earlier this month, is to make it easier to build more housing in Connecticut. Both housing costs and homelessness have risen over the past several years, and experts say not enough housing has been built in Connecticut to meet the need. The original housing bill was one of just three Lamont vetoed during the regular session this year. While the governor and his administrators had helped to negotiate the original bill, Lamont vetoed it because municipal leaders raised objections, he said. He touted the new bill because local leaders signed on. A bipartisan group of mayors and first selectmen spoke at a press conference in support of it. Republicans in the House and Senate, however, objected to both the content of the bill and the process used to approve it — raising it during a two-day special session, with less time for debate and outside of the normal political process, which would have included public hearings. The bill requires municipalities, either by themselves or with their regional councils of government, to create housing growth plans that include a specific number of units set as a goal. By complying with this section of the law, cities and towns have access to new state money and increased reimbursement rates for school construction projects. They also can access those benefits by following certain parameters to increase housing density near public transit, or by joining the Connecticut Municipal Development Authority to allow more housing in downtowns and near transit. It also includes parameters to allow conversion of commercial properties to residential without special hearings before planning and zoning commissions, although towns can require that the first floor stay commercial.