Thomas Breen photo
Homeless rights activists Sade and Donny at an October 2018 affordable housing rally.
The Affordable Housing Task Force has released its final 21-page report in preparation for a vote on Thursday, Jan. 24.
The report proposes 44 different recommendations for how the city and the Board of Alders can best address New Haven’s affordable housing crisis.
Click here to download a copy of the report.
The housing panel, which the Board of Alders created in March 2018 after a public debate about the conversion of the Hotel Duncan and the loss of Single Room Occupancy (SRO) dwellings downtown, convened six public meetings between June 2018 and January 2019.
At the most recent meeting, the group previewed some of the recommendations detailed in the final report, which the body will vote on on Thursday, Jan. 24 at 6 p.m. in the Aldermanic Chambers on the second floor of City Hall before delivering the report to the Board of Alders to review and draft legislation around.
Some of the recommendations include:
• Creating a permanent Affordable Housing Commission;
• Funding an inclusionary zoning feasibility study;
• Lobbying the state to allow the municipal housing authority to create low-income housing in surrounding suburbs;
• Increasing awareness of city-owned vacant lots and creating an inventory of privately-owned vacant lots;
• Eliminating parking requirements for new housing developments;
• Converting city-owned parking lots into affordable housing where appropriate;
• Increasing the staffing of the Fair Rent Commission and anti-blight Livable City Initiative (LCI)
• Delegating housing development functions to the Economic Development Corporation of the City of New Haven and returning LCI’s focus to enforcement
“Over the course of its work the Task Force heard testimony from residents, state and federal policy experts, elected officials, developers, advocates, and activists,” the report’s executive summary reads. “AHTF [Affordable Housing Task Force] members engaged their own subject knowledge expertise as well as the passionate and creative proposals presented by those engaged in the process.”
Click here to view the documents that the panel received and reviewed as it crafted its recommendations.