While Darien has a reputation as an affluent coastal town, the town’s First Selectman Jayme Stevenson says she has plans to make sure that any person, of any race or ethnicity, feels comfortable living in Darien.
Stevenson joined “The Municipal Voice,” the podcast co-produced by the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities and WNHH, to describe her efforts to create a new name for the town.
“The New York Times especially loves to continue to remind people of [Darien’s reputation], based on a fictional movie,” Stevenson said.
New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker singled out Darien recently as a community that needs to do more to address the state’s segregation. (Click here for an article about that.)
According to Stevenson, the Darien of the past is not the Darien of today, and it’s a town that’s constantly looking forward.
Today, Darien is adapting to current trends in housing. Stevenson said that the town with the reputation as the “essential single-family community” has actually constructed over 850 units of multi-family housing over the past twenty years.
Darien is part of the Stamford-Norwalk-Greenwich area, which has a median income of $143,000—$50,000 above that of the New Haven area.
“We know that people want to live differently,” she said, “We know that people need housing choice.”
This choice includes inclusionary zoning, which sets aside a certain percentage of units as affordable to lower-income families. She identified a zoning law where a developer wants to build more than five units, 12 percent of those units must be below market rate, exceeding the standards of 8 – 30g, the state statute that mandates affordable housing.
Stevenson spoke about other efforts to make Darien socioeconomically inclusive.
Residents are embarking on new conversations about racism with the police department, which she described as one of the best trained in the state. There is a similar year-long study group with clergy, Stevenson said.
Looking forward to the rest of the year, Stevenson said that she’s concerned about the emotional and mental wellbeing of her constituents. She said that all are learning how to handle a pandemic in real time, whether as town leaders, public health directors, or residents. The health of the town relies on collaborating, she said.
“I know that we will continue to get through it together,” Stevenson said.