Suburban Zoning Debate Gets Personal

A high school senior, a septuagenarian social worker, a military veteran, and a recent immigrant from Latin America reached into their pasts to buttress arguments for and against allowing more multi-family affordable housing in the leafy New Haven suburb of Woodbridge.

They were among 16 Woodbridge residents who testified Monday night during an hour-long special meeting of the Woodbridge Town Planning & Zoning Commission.

The sole subject of the online special public hearing was 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 suburban rezoning debate — which has sparked the attention and input of New Haven-based legal advocates, law students, and affordable housing supporters — will continue during the town commission’s next regularly scheduled meeting on Feb. 1.

Just as during the last public hearing on the matter on Nov. 30, Monday night saw proponents argue that the town has perpetuated racial and economic segregation for decades through exclusionary zoning.

The bid’s opponents, meanwhile, repeated calls for local zoning control, and slammed the proposal’s backers as out-of-town interlopers most interested in boosting their own résumés.

Unlike at the last special hearing, which consisted primarily of civil-rights attorneys and law students from Yale Law School laying a historical and legal foundation for their case to amend Woodbridge’s zoning laws, Monday’s meeting featured only the voices of Woodbridge town residents.

Alongside arguments about traffic, density, well water, septic systems, and state affordable housing mandates, residents tapped into their own personal histories and values to explain where they fell on the simmering local land use debate.

“I’m pretty much just going off of emotion at this point,” said military veteran and Michigan transplant Christopher Perry halfway through his opposition to the proposal. He called the application a ​“strong-arm attempt to force the town into something not proven based on my life experience.”

Andrew Danzig countered in support. ​“The arguments against this application, presented in the Woodbridge Town News and mailings and submissions to the commission, they appear to be more emotional than fact-based, and they lend credence to the applicants’ claim” about the town’s zoning historic unwillingness to open up to a more racially and economically diverse population.

Before ending his own testimony, he too looked back to his own family’s experience to bolster his call for making the suburb less exclusive.

“When my parents moved to Connecticut many years ago,” he said, ​“a realtor said, ​‘You’ll like this neighborhood. There are no Jews here.’” That very mentality and the laws that support it, he said, can be — and must be — overcome.

Supporters: ​“Citizens Like You And Me” Can Help End Segregation

Monday’s public hearing saw a pretty even split between proponents and opponents of the rezoning effort.

Backers interspersed their arguments for amending the zoning code with personal stories and asides about the social good of promoting diversity in an otherwise overwhelming white and wealthy ​‘burb.

Jean Molot said she has lived in Woodbridge with her family for two decades and has taught at Beecher Road School for 16 years.

She said she cherishes the town’s ​“rural character” as much as anyone she knows.

“I love the natural beauty,” she continued. ​“But I also believe our town will be much more beautiful when we offer opportunities to live and learn here to a more diverse population.”

Amity Regional High School senior Ian Glassman agreed. Growing up in Woodbridge, he said, ​“I would have benefited from a more racially diverse environment.” He said he attended summer camp ​“full of diverse individuals” and found it an ​“enriching” experience.

He said his interest in the simmering local debate prompted him to take a look at some local demographic data. Only around 3 percent of Woodbridge residents are Black, he said. ​“Unfortunately, this isn’t some coincidence. Numbers do not naturally happen like this.”

Glassman backed the rezoning proposal. ​“The town of Woodbridge will remain the town of Woodbridge. It’s what we make of it,” he said. ​“This is a matter of where are priorities lie.”

Evan Stark, a 78-year-old sociologist, social worker, and author, recalled how his family ​“helped break the restrictive covenants that kept Jews like us out of Bronxville [a New York City suburb] in the 1950s.”

“Segregated housing in the United States is not the result of government action alone,” he said. ​“Citizens like you and me helped to make it, and must help unmake it.”

Stark also looked back 50 years to when he and his wife and four young children scraped by in New Haven with little savings and modest incomes. He said they decided to sacrifice their immediate quality of life by deferring some of their shared income into pensions.

“Pensions work because of the collective sacrifice so that individuals can thrive,” he said. ​“Affordable housing is like a pension. It entails a small sacrifice now, a collective deferral on the part of a town, for a payoff later on. It is a bet on the future in which individuals thrive not because their wealth increases, which it may do, but because the quality of our lives is enriched” by justice, equity, and diversity.

Cary Gross, a 20-year resident of Woodbridge, looked back to a more recent history for his argument in support of the propsal.

He recalled how 250 Woodbridge residents marched three miles through the center of town to protest against racism last June in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He said the calls for racial justice at the center of that march mean nothing if residents come out to block a proposal that would potentially make the town a more racially and economically diverse place to live.

“Our town’s had 80 years to deal with this,” Gross said about Woodbridge’s exclusive zoning code. ​“We haven’t demonstrated our ability to put forth practical solutions. Now is the time.”

Opponents: Focus On Homeownership, Not Rentals

Opponents referenced their backgrounds and experiences to underscore their skepticism of rental housing and support for homeownership, as well as their beliefs in a meritocratic society that justly rewards those who work hard for a better quality of life for themselves and their families.

Liva Andrejeva said that she is a Latin American immigrant, and that she recently moved to Woodbridge with her husband, mother, and son.

“I lived in New Haven for many years,” she said. ​“There were a lot of predatory landlords. I would be somewhat worried about them coming to town and building substandard housing for people that they would subsequently exploit” if the rezoning proposal is approved.

She called instead for the town to focus on making homeownership rather than renting more affordable. That would allow residents to ​“build equity” and take ​“pride of ownership,” she said.

Daniel Cowan agreed. He said that he and his wife used to live in low-income housing in Stratford. He was subsequently able to purchase his house, then sell it before the housing bubble burst in 2007, and then buy their current home in Woodbridge.

Allowing for multi-family rental housing in Woodbridge would be like ​“throwing chains around people’s necks,” he said, ​“putting them in a rental environment where they’re not going to be owning equity.” He said that the town’s housing strategy should instead focus on the construction of small, affordable, owner-occupied dwellings.

Christopher Perry said that he moved to Woodbridge just five months ago. He said he is a military veteran who grew up in Ypsilanti, MI.

“The thing that I’m most worried about is that we’re damaging the meritocracy and people who have to work for a living,” he said in opposition to the multi-family rezoning proposal.

Justin Parker, meanwhile, reminded the commissioners that not everyone in Woodbridge is rich. ​“It’s barely affordable for me, and I really love this community,” he said.

He said he’s lived in Woodbridge for over eight years, and that the town’s tax burden weighs heavily on his family. ​“I’m barely making it out as it is.”

Parker recognized that, per the legal advocates’ presentation, the town has spent decades opposing any kind of multi-family housing-oriented zoning reform. ​“So I question our ability to do that.” But, he warned, keep an eye on how any such housing proposal might affect taxes for current residents already struggling to get by.

“I’m not against affordable housing,” he said. ​“But it needs to be done smartly.”