City, ​‘Burb Clash On Open-Housing Quest

Civil-rights speakers threw down the gauntlet: ​“Snob” Woodbridge promotes segregation through exclusionary zoning.

Woodbridgers pushed back: ​“Elitist” interlopers have no business labeling their liberal ​‘burb racist and trying to change their zoning laws.

That debate — the latest chapter in an ongoing quest to address affordable housing and racial segregation regionally rather than community-by-community — played out Monday night during a special meeting of the Woodbridge Town Planning & Zoning Commission. The nearly three-hour public hearing was held online on YouTube Live.

The sole focus of the virtual meeting was a two-pronged proposal designed to make it easier for developers to build multi-family affordable housing in the leafy New Haven suburb.

The proposals have inspired New Haveners concerned about the regional roots of racism and segregation to get involved, including participating in Monday’s hearing.

One proposed amendment seeks to update the town’s zoning laws to permit multi-family housing in every residential district in Woodbridge, and to require that a certain share of those new housing units be set aside at below-market rates for low-income renters.

The second proposed amendment seeks to update Woodbridge’s Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD) to identify the creation of more multi-family affordable housing as an explicit town policy goal — and help bring Woodbridge into compliance with the state Constitution and state and federal fair housing law.

Both proposed zoning-related amendments were submitted by 2 Orchard Road LLC, a holding company owned by the Stamford-based development firm Garden Homes Fund; and by Open Communities Trust LLC, a nonprofit affiliate of the statewide civil rights group Open Communities Alliance (OCA).

Click here to read the proposed amendments in full.

“We’re here today to open Woodbridge by making changes to the town zoning regulations and Plan of Conservation and Development in order to end a long period of exclusionary housing practices,” said OCA Executive Director Erin Boggs (pictured), one of the lead backers of the suburban zoning changes.

Woodbridge has long been a ​“pioneer in exclusion,” she said, and has used single-family zoning laws to ​“entrench segregation” by race and class for nearly a century.

The town is currently dominated by single-family houses and is significantly whiter and wealthier than the surrounding region.

“When Woodbridge stays the same,” warned Yale Law School student Karen Anderson later in the evening, ​“Woodbridge stays segregated.”

The public hearing represented the formal opening salvo in a desegregation-through-zoning-reform effort first launched by OCA and the Yale Law School’s Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization in September during a press conference held outside of Woodbridge’s Town Hall.

Just like then, the civil rights attorneys and law students on Monday sought to describe in comprehensive detail how Woodbridge’s zoning has historically promoted residential and racial segregation by boosting housing costs to unreachable levels for nearby low- and moderate-income residents.

They also pitched the commissioners on why permitting multi-family affordable housing will help remedy that legal and social malady, and gave a case study of a vacant single-family house at 2 Orchard Rd. that would be converted into a four-family house — with two units reserved for renters on Section 8 — if the amendments were to pass.

“After decades of exclusion,” Boggs said, ​“there is still time to right the wrongs of the past.”

Opponents: Go Away, ​“Elitists”

Many of the Woodbridge residents who spoke up during the public hearing section of Monday’s meeting, as well as a majority of those who submitted written testimony in advance, met the advocates’ passion with their own ardent opposition to what they described as outside meddling in their town’s affairs.

Some described the amendments as a death knell for Woodbridge’s small-town character and bucolic beauty. They warned that a flood of new residents would destroy property values, increase traffic, overburden fragile water and septic systems, and overcrowd the public schools.

They also bristled at anyone — especially Ivy League outsiders — riding into town and calling them racist.

Don’t be ​“bullied by these elitist individuals and fall into this bigoted trap,” said Wedgewood Drive resident Daniel Cowan. ​“This conversation has nothing to do with race.” It is rather a ploy by a ​“group of elitists from a nearby university” looking to meddle in Woodbridge’s business.

“The character of the town would be substantially changed by virtue of this sleight of hand or trick,” argued Raymond Bershtein. He warned that the attorneys and students are looking to ​“blow up our zoning regulations with allegations of racism and all sorts of nasty things in a town that is pretty progressive.”

“Woodbridge housing is affordable, but it’s a long path of hard work,” insisted New Haven transplant Louis Ruotolo, who said he has lived in the suburb for three decades. ​“The path is mostly uphill. There are no buses to take you up that hill. You need to walk it. But it’s worth it.”

Randi Fiorello perhaps encapsulated the opponents’ concerns most succinctly when she wrote that the zoning amendments would mean, ​“Goodbye, single family zoning!”

Former Republican gubernatorial candidate and Orange-based attorney Tim Herbst said during the meeting that he and his law partner represent a dozen ​“concerned” residents opposed to the zoning update.

He said he plans on submitting a formal request to present his own legal argument and expert testimony at the next public hearing.

The town commissioners themselves did not ask any questions of the amendment advocates on Monday. They instead voted to continue the public hearing until Jan. 4.

Commission Chair Rob Klee encouraged his colleagues to take a month to digest the advocates’ presentation and the subsequent testimony from the public, and to come prepared with questions for the second part of what could be a multi-part public hearing process.

Supporters: High Housing Costs Drive ​“Segregated Status Quo”

The bulk of Monday’s hearing consisted of Yale Law School students detailing for commissioners Woodbridge’s history of exclusionary zoning, the relationship between single-family housing restrictions and racial and economic segregation, repeated failed attempts to amend Woodbridge’s zoning code over the past four decades, and how the current code continues to keep the town disproportionately wealthy and white.

“We are not proposing to change any other part of the zoning code other than restrictions on multi-family housing,” Boggs said about what the proposed zoning amendments would accomplish.

She said the town’s current requirements around minimum lot sizes, building height, lot coverage, setback, water supply and sewage disposal would all stay the same.

The only part of the law that would change is that homes currently limited to single families would be opened up to more residents.

That would represent quite the shift from the town’s zoning code as it currently exists, said Yale Law student Sean Yang.

While single-family homes can be built as of right in every residential district in town, ​“in contrast, multi-family is permitted nowhere in the Town of Woodbridge.”

And with minimum lot sizes of 65,000 square feet — or 1.5 acre per home — and only 0.2 percent of the town open for the construction of duplexes, Woodbridge has remained an expensive single-family suburb for generations.

He said that the town has a total of 3,478 housing units, 43 of which are recognized by the state as ​“affordable.” Thirty of those units are limited to seniors, he said, meaning that the ​“true” number of affordable units open to families with children in Woodbridge is 13.

“Despite laws to the contrary, Woodbridge does not allow multifamily housing.”

The racially segregated consequences of this zoning code are clear, said Yale Law student Karen Anderson. She said that only 8.3 percent of Woodbridge is Black or Hispanic, while the surrounding region is 28.9 percent Black or Hispanic.

The median home value in the town is over $400,000, in comparison to $230,000 for New Haven County.

And the town’s median income is over $142,000, compared to $68,000 for South Central Connecticut.

“A driver of the segregated status quo is high housing costs,” she said.

While Woodbridge’s zoning regulations go back to 1932, Anderson said, public health and civil rights experts have criticized its ​“snob” zoning as early as the 1970s.

She went through a recent history of attempts to change the town’s zoning code to make it easier for the development of multifamily housing — with opportunities dashed each time, in 1981, 1982, 1983, 1991, 1994, 2004, and 2015.

In 1996, she said, Woodbridge did create a new Affordable Housing District in its zoning code. But, she and Yang argued, the AHD is so restrictive and has been so neglected by the town that no developer has ever used it.

Hannah Abelow said that this de facto residential segregation through single-family zoning violates Connecticut’s Zoning Enabling Act, Connecticut’s State Constitution, as well as state and federal Fair Housing Acts.

She said current Woodbridge law fails to promote housing choice and economic diversity, including for low- and moderate-income households who do not already live in the town. And she said it has failed to live up to the state’s ban on segregation, and state and federal prohibitions on housing policies that have disparate impacts on racial and ethnic minorities.

While the state’s zoning enabling statute does not explicitly mention race, she said, ​“we’ve got to bring it up.” In Connecticut, ​“race and poverty are very closely related,” with Black households in South Central Connecticut earning on average $42,000 a year, Hispanic households earning $45,000 a year, and white households earning $79,000 a year.

“The requirements to zone for economic diversity and for the region as a whole is in effect to zone for racial diversity,” Abelow said.

“Towns are not licensed to act as islands unto themselves,” she continued. ​“Swift action must be taken.”

And in this particular case, Yale Law students Xuanling Xu and Patrick Holland said, the proposed action consists of two amendments: one to the town’s zoning regulations, one to the POCD.

The first would allow for multi-family structures on lots currently restricted to single-family housing in all of the town’s residential districts. Developers would also have to preserve a portion of that housing for at least 40 years for households earning no more than 60 percent of the area median income (AMI), or lease a portion of the units to households receiving rental assistance like Section 8, or the development must be recognized by the state as ​“affordable” without public subsidies.

The proposed update to the POCD, meanwhile, would add language advising that the town adopt zoning laws that encourage multifamily affordable housing.

A handful of Woodbridge residents who testified Monday night spoke up in favor of the proposed amendments.

“I believe the Town of Woodbridge would benefit from efforts to increase racial and economic diversity,” said Jean Molot. She said that children and young adults are better served and become more ​“open-minded and accepting” when teachers and classmates reflect a diversity of races, religions, economic backgrounds, and places of origin.

Furthermore, she said, if Woodbridge does nothing now, the town will likely face a costly lawsuit ​“which they would lose.”

Alana Rosenberg agreed. ​“I do believe it is our obligation to create more affordable housing opportunities in Woodbridge,” she said. ​“Purposefully including some and excluding others for any reason is discriminatory.”

And Sally Connolly described the raft of benefits that Woodbridge residents derive from living next to New Haven — from museums to higher education to religious congregations to places of work.

“This neighborliness is currently a one-way street,” she said. ​“The time is now to be a welcoming neighbor.”

Pushback: ​“I Refuse To Apologize For Our Zoning”

The residents who showed up to speak out against the proposed amendments, meanwhile, outnumbered the town supporters by at least three-to-one.

Their arguments rested on claims that an increase in density would have a deleterious impact on the town’s environment and character, and that the proponents were outsiders ginning up racial controversy and most interested in building up their resumes.

“It’s wildly inappropriate” to bring up race when talking about the town’s zoning code, said Chuck Pyne.

“This is a very liberal town. I think anyone who would accuse us of otherwise hasn’t done their homework properly and should apologize to the town.” He asked the commission to ​“summarily turn this proposal down and ask these folks to go peddle their wares elsewhere.”

Songnian Liu said the applicants were out of line in playing the ​“race card” because Woodbridge does have a sizable Asian-American population (15.3 percent) and foreign-born population (20 percent).

“We do have plenty of immigrants that already live in Woodbridge, so it’s not good to consider race as an excuse to propose such a kind of proposal.”

Kayla Sanders said she felt that the applicants’ pitch was ​“unauthentic and fighting for the wrong reason, or coming at it from the wrong approach” by focusing so much on race.

“I don’t know if this is a civil rights and social justice issue,” she said. ​“It needs to be something that the town needs to be comfortable with, that the residents need to be comfortable with, and that cannot be forced.”

In his written testimony, John Zeek said that the applicant is couching a profit-seeking venture in the language of diversity.

“I MIGHT be able to digest that if OCT did not have a vested financial benefit from this proposal,” he wrote. ​“If it were REALLY a proposal about diversity, there would not be a subject property needed to convey the message. One must ask, why did OCT choose Woodbridge — the answer is simple — they know that rents commanded from this community will outperform the rents from neighboring towns and cities.”

And Fiorello, in a four-page letter detailing her opposition to the proposal, rejected what she saw as an outside incursion into an area of life that should be seen as race-neutral.

“I refuse to apologize for our zoning,” she wrote. ​“Our town reflects our unique culture over centuries, and welcomes all ethnicities and faiths. Our population is diverse in background and occupation.”

Click on the Facebook Live video below to watch the full public hearing.