Open-Housing Quest Critics Champion Local Control

Tim Herbst isn’t opposed to affordable housing.

So Tim Herbst said.

The Orange-based attorney and former Republican gubernatorial candidate simply opposes politically-motivated actors from outside of Woodbridge coming into the leafy suburb and telling its residents how to write their land-use laws.

Herbst got his chance to make that local control argument Tuesday night during the final two hours of the latest meeting of the Woodbridge Town Planning & Zoning Commission. The virtual public hearing was held online via YouTube Live and Webex.

Claiming to represent a dozen clients who are ​“residents, citizens, and taxpayers of the Town of Woodbridge,” Herbst made his case against a two-pronged proposal submitted by civil-rights attorneys and law students looking to make it easier for developers to build multi-family affordable housing in Woodbridge.

The ongoing open housing debate, slated to continue later this month, has inspired New Haveners concerned about the regional roots of racism and segregation to get involved. That has included professors and students from Yale Law School who have taken the lead in pushing for the proposed zoning overhaul so far.

Echoing arguments made by critical Woodbridge residents during the past two commission-hosted public hearings on the matter, Herbst and Wallingford-based planner Brian Miller insisted Tuesday that their opposition to the proposed zoning update has nothing to do with an opposition to affordable housing itself.

Nor, they said, does it stem from an unwillingness to recognize that Woodbridge’s single-family-oriented zoning laws have historically kept the town prohibitively expensive and racially monolithic.

“I am not here at all to challenge the need for affordable housing in many communities in Connecticut, including in Woodbridge,” Miller said. “… I think that history has shown that zoning has been used many times as a process for discrimination against poor and minority populations. There’s no question about that.”

“We do not disagree with the fact that the town needs to come up with a workable solution” for encouraging the development of more affordable housing, Herbst said.

The problem, the former Trumbull first selectman said, is that the plan under consideration — which would permit multi-family housing in every residential district in Woodbridge, and would require that a certain share of those new housing units be set aside at below-market rates for low-income renters — did not originate with Woodbridge residents themselves.

“I think we can acknowledge that the past is the past,” Herbst said, alluding to the history that the civil rights advocates have laid out of Woodbridge residents consistently blocking over the past five-plus decades any inclusionary zoning reforms that have made their way before the town planning commission.

“We’re looking forward. We need to make changes. But there’s a right way to do things, and this is not the right way.”

The right way, Herbst said, would be to scrap the current proposal entirely and have the Woodbridge Town Planning & Zoning Commission ​“drive this ship” of coming up with a new affordable housing plan for its own community. ​“One that you review, you vet, and you collaborate with the citizens and taxpayers of Woodbridge” in championing.

“Consumption” Debated

During Miller’s half-hour presentation Tuesday, the planner focused on how, based on his professional expertise, he was not certain of exactly how much of an impact the multi-family zoning update might have on increasing traffic, polluting well water, and overwhelming local septic systems.

“I wasn’t able to assess the impacts of this proposal,” he said, ​“but the impacts intuitively I think would be rather significant. I would suggest that it wouldn’t be anything I would advise as a planning consultant [that the zoning commission approve] without first evaluating these impacts.”

Herbst, meanwhile, zeroed in on the issue of towns controlling their own zoning destinies during his presentation and cross-examination of Donald Poland, a Hartford-based planning consultant who testified several months ago in favor of the proposed zoning update.

Herbst pointed out that the proposed zoning update would allow for the creation of multi-family housing as-of-right, with no sign-off needed from the town planning and zoning commission, in every residential district in town.

“To completely remove the planning and zoning commission from the process entirely is irresponsible and it disrespects the role and the function that volunteers at the local level play in formulating public policy,” Herbst said.

Poland replied that Herbst was overlooking or downplaying a few key parts of the proposed zoning update.

For one, the zoning update explicitly preserves the requirement that new multi-family properties comply with the town’s current bulk and dimensional requirements. If a single-family house is converted to a four-family house, as a developer partnering with the civil rights advocates has proposed, then that house would still have to meet all of the current building, health, and zoning code requirements (other than the one limiting how many families can live there.)

Secondly, Poland said, these as-of-right developments would still need to be reviewed by the town’s professional zoning staff, who would need to sign off on any given project’s compliance before issuing a permit.

“Here in Connecticut, we have this feeling that commissions have to approve everything when staff are more qualified to,” Poland said. He said that, when he advises towns on creating inclusive zoning codes, he tells them to ​“plan for proper uses in the locations you want them, and then permit them. I always say: ​‘Decide what it is you want, where you want, and allow it with the least resistant permitting process.’”

But wouldn’t you agree that town planning and zoning commissions are charged with considering the potential impacts on public health and infrastructure associated with zoning code updates? Herbst asked. And doesn’t common sense say that allowing more families to live in a dwelling inevitably increases the ​“consumption demand” on, say, a septic system or well water?

Public health regulators and inspectors must take the lead on determining the safety of a permissible development, Poland replied. Zoning commissioners must in turn decide what should be permissible where.

“You keep using the word ​‘consumption,’” Poland continued. He said that single-family, large-lot zoning like Woodbridge’s ​“adds additional consumption demands on land.”

By only allowing one housing unit per 1.5 acres of land, as most residential districts in Woodbridge do, he said, ​“right now you guys are consuming land like you couldn’t imagine. It just depends on what you want to measure by consumption.”

Build Up The Country Club Instead?

At the end of his presentation, Miller offered a series of alternatives that the town planning commission could pursue instead of adopting the proposed multi-family zoning update.

They could allow for two-family houses as-of-right with just a zoning permit. They could propose the development of townhouses in certain parts of town, or they could try to encourage mixed-use, multi-family development in more commercial areas.

Or they could take a look at building up the Woodbridge Country Club with new recreation facilities and ​“include a couple acres of it as a nice affordable housing development.”

“If the town is the property owner, they can dictate a lot more of the fine points of what they want,” he said. He added, ​“I know it’s been a historical sore point here” about what the town should do with the country club.

Herbst and Miller also repeatedly pointed to a state Department of Housing affordable housing guidebook from December 2020. ​“The best way to build support for your town’s plan is to create an inclusive planning process,” Herbst said, ​“that provides meaningful opportunities for resident participation in the process from the beginning.” He said this current proposal does not meet those standards.

In a brief cross-examination of Miller, Yale Law School student Patrick Holland quoted that very same state affordable housing guide as reading, ​“Not surprisingly, access to high opportunity census tracts is very often limited by a lack of housing affordability, and areas of opportunity are predominantly occupied by white people. This is not an accident.”

He also asked about Miller’s proposals for allowing two-family house and/or townhouses and/or mixed-use developments and/or building up the Woodbridge Country Club.

“Are you aware of any pending applications to amend the zoning regulations per your recommendations?” Holland asked.

No, Miller replied. ​“I understand there’s been some attempts in the past.” He said those likely failed in the past because they were ​“mostly outwardly driven” by developers or outside advocates, and not by town residents themselves.

And what about your clients? Holland asked. Are they involved in any way in advocating for these alternative zoning updates?

Herbst objected, citing attorney-client privilege around what strategies his clients may be pursuing.

Can you even object during a town zoning commission meeting? Holland asked. This isn’t a formal court of law.

Miller nevertheless deferred to Herbst. There may be discussions ​“happening behind the scenes in Woodbridge” about alternative zoning updates that might chip away at the current single-family-zoning restrictions, he said. But he’s not aware of any.