Affordable housing.
Everyone’s talking about it.
But what exactly is it?
It’s complicated.
One person who does understand affordable housing — its definitions, regulations, ambiguities and nuances — is Michelle Perillie.
The other day I headed to Town Hall, for a tutorial from the town’s Planning & Zoning director. Here’s what I learned.
Any discussion of affordable housing starts in Connecticut with “8-30g.” If less than 10% of a town’s housing stock is classified as affordable, it can be subject to 8-30g.
The statute allows developers to build housing that otherwise might be denied by munipal zoning regulations, unless there is a “significant” health or safety concern.
One of Westport’s newest 8-30g projects — 122 Wilton Road, at Kings Highway North — opened last fall. All 19 units are deemed affordable.
Towns can apply for moratoriums — usually 4 years — if they add a certain number of units, showing significant progress to their stock.
Moratoriums are awarded on a points system. Different points are given for different types of units, at different income levels. There is a difference too between points for government funded projects, and those that are simply deed restricted.
While some cities and larger communities have met the 10% goal, most smaller towns have not.
Westport had a moratorium from March 5, 2019 through March 4, 2023.
Affordable housing is generally defined as costing no more than 30% of a household’s income, at 80% of the area median income, and is deed restricted to remain affordable for a specific period of time.
However, only housing built after 1990 — when 8-30g took effect — is considered, when making affordable housing calculations. That means certain units do not count.
Westport currently has 424 units designated as affordable housing. That’s 3.97% of our 10,567 dwelling units (2020 census).
8-30g requires calculations for affordable income and housing costs be based on whichever is lower: the state median income, or area media income. Here, the state median income of $124,600 is lower, so that is what’s used.
There’s a complex formula, involving studio, or 1-, 2- and 3-bedroom units, along with units rented at 40%, 60% or 80% of maximum monthly housing costs.
The lowest unit — a studio at 40% of maximum monthly housing costs — would be $697 a month. The most expensive — a 3-bedroom at 80% — would rent for $2,217.
Maximum family income allowable would be $34,888 for a single person at 40% of state median income. The highest income to qualify would be 6 people at 80%: $115,629.
Which brings us back to dwelling units in Westport.
Nearly 90 units qualify under 8-30 because they are government funded. The biggest is Canal Park near Kings Highway North, with 50 units.
Canal Park offers affordable housing for seniors, near downtown.
There are 17 units on Wassell Lane, 8 overseen by Homes with Hope on Saugatuck Avenue, 6 in CLASP homes at 4 sites, and others scattered throughout town.
Many more units are deed restricted. There are 93 units at Hidden Brook and Sasco Creek Village on Post Road East, near Stop & Shop; 78 at Hales Court; 29 at 1177 Post Road East, opposite Greens Farms Elementary School, 19 at the new 122 Wilton Road building, and others on Post Road East, Riverside Aveneu, West End Avenue, Cross Street, Bradley Lane, Belden Place, Oakview Lane, Crescent Park, Myrtle Avenue and Church Lane.
The 6 units at Susie’s House — the former Project Return home for young women on Compo Road North, now run by Homes with Hope — are also deed restricted.
Susie’s House, on Compo Road North, welcomed its first residents in April.
There are 2 units that might not be expected, on Crooked Mile Lane and Cross Highway. Both were formerly illegal accessory apartments that have been converted to affordable housing units.
Certain units that seem affordable do not count, however, for technical reasons. Among them: 36 units at The Saugatuck, on Bridge Street.
Westport is adding points toward its next moratorium, with 4 projects approved, and under construction. There are 78 affordable units on Hiawatha Lane Extension, 22 at 85 Post Road West, 3 at 785 Post Road East, and 2 at 259 Riverside Avenue.
Construction on Post Road West will include affordable units.
Another 6 units have been approved, but are not yet under construction, on Ketchum Street and at 1620 Post Road East.
Westport is addressing its affordable housing neds in many ways. The 2017 Plan of Conservation and Development recommends steps like:
- Supporting and encouraging the Westport Housing Authority in their efforts.
- Considerng ways of integrating affordable and workforce housing in future projects.
- Supporting and encouraging non-profit organizations — for example, Homes with Hope and CLASP — that help address housing needs.
The 2022-2027 Affordable Housing Plan also outlines many ways Westport can work toward creating more diverse housing.
Over many previous years, the Planning & Zoning Commission has adopted regulations to promote a variety of housing choice and opportunities, while striving to maintain the scale and integrity of the town that attracted residents here.
The diversity of housing types includes accessory apartments within single-family homes, and as separate buildings; apartments in areas like the Post Road, Saugatuck and downtown; supportive housing; group homes for seniors and youth, and cluster housing.
Some have already been built. Some are under construction, or in planning stages.
All will continue to be discussed, as part of Westport’s ongoing discussion of the complex, confusing — but very important — topic of affordable housing.
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I think that “affordable” is an unfortunate choice of word because it is entirely subjective. Whether housing is “affordable” varies from family to family and depends upon circumstances other than annual family income.
I think a more useful, more objective standard would be “below market rate” or a fixed percentage below market rate.
Below market rate housing is lovely, everybody should have a chance. However, the wilton road building is a joke. We took one of the worst intersections and added traffic. What about the red barn by the way. What about sherwood island connector. Traffic in westport is going to push people out at some point. Westport is a slice of heaven getting ruined by traffic. We have 99 reasons for a bridge protest, lets work traffic into the next one!
how is traffic in Greenwich. Darien. New Canaan ? Fairfield ? I hear even people in Weston complain about their local traffic.
To me, the most puzzling question is: Why do 8-30g’s have to be so ugly? Good design does not cost extra.
Actually good design does cost extra – in many ways. But the reason that all of the new, quickly and inexpensively built apartment building look the same is that they feature the same, inexpensive construction:
https://commonedge.org/the-architectural-pandemic-of-the-stick-frame-over-podium-building/
Adam I recently toured the Wilton Road building and even understood how the cars flow in and out of the lot. The amount of cars is low under 20 and people leave for work and come home. I am one local that has been pleasantly surprised about that project. Especially how it did not disturb the Marsh. The neighbors nearby are even pleased I understand.
Great article, thank you! I applaud the town’s efforts to provide affordable housing. I would love to see more reporting on this. It is such an important issue and your piece gives rise to so many questions, such as: is the formula effective, why are units pre 1990 excluded, have there been efforts to revise 8-30g, what other policies are on the books or being contemplated to address affordable housing needs and are there other more effective measures being employed in other states??
The towns efforts can be certainly applauded but not if it means taking pre 90’s already affordable housing and converting it to off site for a developer who is avaricious and greedy.
At no point should affordable offsite even be considered unless a dollar formula is in play..
Value of 3 units at gables proposed luxury complex, with pool= 5 million…
Affordable housing offsite should equal 5 million.. not some 2 family god knows where, so potentially 10 units should be built offsite – not 3. And in this case 2!!!!!
there must be not an extra dime put in the pockets of developers.
And I do not think hiding what might be group homes to be , addresses from neighbors is ok AT ALL ! Especially by PZ we elected.
It is the height of collusion and un transparent.
PZ works for us, not Redniss.
Dan, thank you so much for this comprehensive explanation of the situation in Westport regarding affordable housing. I agree with Larry Weisman that a different name might take some of the stigma away from it. I would call it local workforce housing. Having said that, I’d like to mention is I pass the project on the corner of Kings Highway and Wilton Road 20 times a week on average, and I have never seen a car going in or out of that complex. My theory on the additional traffic congestion in Westport is what I called the Nanny effect. Mom‘s in a car, dad‘s in a car, and one or two nannies are in cars as well. Mostly doing household chores, work related things and additionally driving kids to multiple activities. It’s simply a lot of cars.
Thanks, Mickey. I don’t think there is ANY noticeable increase in traffic at all as a result of 122 Wilton Road.
As for the “nanny effect”: there’s also the COVID effect. With many more people now working from home — men and women — there is much more opportunity to drive around town during the day. Going for coffee, to the gym, taking and picking up kids from school — if the car is not parked at the train station all day, there’s much more traffic in what used to be non-rush hours.
What is most important here is, that although many “below market rate housing” are pre 1990( and sadly do not count towards moratorium points) they are still a part of Westports “affordable” stock. In other words persons /families do live in those units presently.
It is critical that we do not allow developers to buy those units and use them for their favorite and most profitable ruse, which is to build luxury apts/condos/townhouses, and rather than allocate some of those to be affordable or below market rate, instead, at a fraction of the cost, they seek out off site units/houses, spruce them up a little so they meet the towns regulations( a far far cry from the luxury units, and call it a day.
This practice which PZ for some reason has been allowing for several years suits ONLY the developers pocket book.
There is a PZ meeting tonight on this very topic.
If the greed of developers and how they use 8-30g to their absolute benefit, and not ours, is of interest you might tune in this evening.
https://westportjournal.com/government/pz-mulls-affordable-housing-accounting-on-site-vs-off-site/
This investor/real estate professional/land use consultant is attempting to have PZ pass a text amendment which will have far reaching and drastic as of right ability to put all the affordable housing associated with their development offsite.
It would be ludicrous to pass this amendment change.
It makes no sense.
Example – pre this self serving practice which crept in over the years.
Bedford square – 24 luxury apts. – 4 of them are affordable.
Example with offsite
Mill development – 31 luxury condos/apts. – no affordable onsite, instead the town allowed them convert a TOWN OWNED, single family home being used as offices into a 6 unit. And that folks was their contribution to affordable housing. Hardly comparable with 6 luxury units onsite.
Bankside – 12 luxury homes – no affordable onsite.
The affordable is on church lane in a very small 2 family house, one unit was already affordable.
That’s instead of 2 of the luxury homes being affordable.
The gables ( not yet built)
12-14 luxury town houses. Trying to do no affordable onsite.
Proposing in lieu of 3 townhouses, with a pool as an amenity, to do a 2 family house they have identified which is clearly already affordable anyway, and sleep up to 12 in 2 units.
And that is what tonight’s amendment is about !
It’s about a contractor not wanting to do 3x luxury units onsite ( because 8-30 g says units onsite have to be of same quality etc..) and instead put them offsite at a monstrous multi million $$$ profit.
Incidentally PZ hid the address of that proposed 2 family unit
Because Redniss didn’t want the neighbors objecting to 12 people in a group home on their street.
Ironic because the developer clearly doesn’t want them in their luxury development.
To allow this ridiculous amendment change would be beyond..
And fyi, this is not his only development coming down the pipe.
Please do read the attached link
And of course thank you Dan for bringing up affordable housing
I completely agree with you.
Allowing developers to move affordable units off-site or pay some fee in lieu of, at a minimum goes against the spirit of what we should be trying to accomplish, even if technically Westport gets “the points”.
Disgusting that those downtown developments you reference were done by someone who got all sorts of breaks from the Town along the way.
When we battled Bradley Commons, and Redniss of course, they tried that and P&Z and the neighbors pushed back, and the community is better off because of it.
Comments above talk about “affordable” vs “workforce”, which is fine, but imagine then telling those new occupants they’re not worthy of living in the same development that was constructed using this horrific 8-30g law in the first place.
I hope the town pushes back and that if and when these projects are built, the “workforce” families also benefit from the same amenities as everyone else.
The input from Michelle, our P&Z Director, and the story by Dan, as well as the comments did not speak to the “moratorium” issue. Westport, especially people such as Danielle Dobin who has worked hard for affordable housing, has not achieved the promises asserted by many, including Danielle, to achieve a second “moratorium”. That is a goal that is reachable, a goal that has been regularly characterized as about to happen and yet, Westport continues not to achieve a second moratorium. There are many excuses cited, but the reality is that our leaders have talked a good game, but have not produced a second “moratorium”.
Maybe Don, the state is tired of some of the bordering on corrupt practices going on and is ignoring us.
Practices and text amendments which benefit developers pockets, and not the goal, which is to “have more affordable housing in our town” are being manufactured constantly by developers who don’t want anything to do with affordable housing, but want to use the 8.30g cudgel. Oh and don’t mind plonking it in anyone’s neighborhood either.
PZ and Dobin, when she led PZ making allowances for offsite at a massive cost saving to developers is NOT OK ! If passes no sniff test.
Perhaps the state is miffed by the carry on.
It’s quite simple.
If you want to build luxury condos in Westport, you will pay your “FAIR SHARE” in affordable housing by building, and not by converting cheap housing into cheap housing. We don’t need your fees, they don’t get us to a moratorium, . not group homes, no. Pay your fair share.
https://online.encodeplus.com/regs/westport-ct/doclibrary.aspx?id=d7cb342f-8eec-45e6-9556-8b57630f4738
The efforts by Redniss to circumvent town planning regs goes back to at least 2020.
Why this was passed is a mystery.
I cannot say it started here. It likely did not. But does anybody see a pattern ?
So Hales Court, Canal Park, Sasco Creek Village and Hidden Brook are all included in the 424 units of affordable housing?
Yes for Hales Court and Canal Park. Some (not all) of Sasco Creek Village and Hidden Brook are included.
Thanks for the info. A lot of folks, me included, thought those weren’t in the number since they were pre-1989. I take it that it is the government money and/or deed restrictions that pull them in?
After one of the more recent articles, I was sort of trying to figure it out. Bridgeport, I gather, has around 21% considered “affordable” which both seems low given demographics as well as high given that 21% of their housing stock was not built post 1989 (last stat I could find from a couple of years ago was ~5%).
the pre-1989 issue is a red herring. If they included those in the count, then the target would have been set at 15 or 20%. This law is about developers being able to hold towns hostage (witness The Hamlet) and not about having a certain amount of affordable housing
Looks more like “pre-1989” is a red herring since there are plenty of pre-1989 units in Westport that are included in the count notwithstanding a whole lot of folks claiming otherwise.
These are the first 2 items on tonight’s P&Z 6:00 zoom meeting agenda, for anyone interested in the subject:
I. PUBLIC HEARING
(The following will be discussed and voted on as time permits. The public may observe and participate at the public hearing.)
1. (Continued from 5/12/25 with testimony received and further continued to 6/2/25, 6/23/25 and 6/30/25) Text Amendment #852: #PZ-25-00223 submitted by Richard W. Redniss, FAICP, to modify Sec 5, Specific Terms, to modify the Definition of Special Needs Individuals; to modify Sec. 32-27, Special Needs Housing, to permit a General Development Plan on State
and Town owned property and to authorize the Planning and Zoning Commission to reduce Setback up to five (5) feet on Town owned land; and Sec. 39A, Inclusionary
Housing Overlay District, to permit offsite affordable housing at the discretion of the Planning and Zoning Commission with standards for review.
2. (Opened on 6/23/25 with testimony received and continued to 6/30/25) 785 Post Road East: Special Permit/Site Plan Appl. #PZ-25-00303 submitted by the Richard W. Redniss, FAICP,
on behalf of 785 Post Rd E LLC, property owner, for modification of Special Permit/Site Plan #16-036 to permit three (3) required affordable units to be provided offsite pursuant
to Text Amendment #852, Appl. ##PZ-25-00233, for property located in the General Business District/Residence A-Inclusionary Housing Overlay District, PID #E09191000.
An incredible meeting occurred tonight until after midnight on an incredibly convoluted proposal for the incredibly important town issue of affordable housing. There were no winners. The PZC was divided. The matter was continued to August.
Keep affordable housing onsite; the developers doth protest too much. Given where we are (“Westport will never ever meet the 10% criteria.”) why is this even negotiable?
Do not let one more developer stand up to say, “We fully comply… ” to a very bad regulation.
During the state of the town presentation at the library, I asked First Select Woman Tooker after the stage debut about what affordable housing was and who can afford it, pointing to 122 Wilton Rd. She said she didn’t know and didn’t care. I was looking for exactly this information and asked her why she didn’t know and didn’t find out to make it public. Now she is running for governor. Just the kind of person we need.
She didn’t know and didn’t care ! Just incredible.
Though not surprising at all.
Yet her panties were all in a knot over getting the the barons south “project” which is going to be a nightmare past the finish line.
Just tonight on a zoom call , listening to a developer make a suggestion that they would be “willing” ( like it was a favor) to use one of the outskirts of barons buildings to fulfill their affordable housing “requirement”.
I just thought, I’m sure you would !
Take a “free house” and spend a few hundred thousand on it.
In lieu of an onsite unit at their development worth 2 million.
The fate of barons should not be let fall in the hands of greedy developers.
Not a single one can be trusted.
He had the nerve to say out loud that private developers are doing a solid for affordable housing then tried to push a nasty amendment that would give developers more control, by putting all affordable offsite.
Just unbelievable – and several commissioners were falling for it.
One was in fact doggedly pushing it as a great idea !
I have a great idea.
No more offsite affordable. Like NONE.
They all want to threaten 8-30g, get their own way around planning and zoning regs.. then when it comes to the affordable part they want to build it in some dump far far away and spend a fraction of the money of an onsite.
And a correction to my above comment earlier.
Mill development.
Selling each now between 1.5 and 3.5 million.
The developer was supposed to do 7 affordable units on site.
Instead they negotiated to take for 500k, 136 Riverside Avenue.
They renovated it. It’s 2800 sq feet and put 5 units into it.
What’s that 600 sq feet each.
PZ thinks that’s an example of success..
the math.
7 units let’s say at 1.5 million each onsite.
10 million give or take.
And the commission calls it a huge win ?
How is that a win.
How is 136 riverside with 5 tiny units any win ?
When the alternative was 7 gorgeous affordable onsite apts.
It was a win only for the developer.
A $ 10 million dollar win.
I don’t understand why P&Z would even entertain this request, unless some of them are in bed with the developers.
It makes zero sense to plop multi-family housing, affordable or not, in the middle of a residential street, and that’s what they’re doing to satisfy the off-site requirement. Puts a burden on everyone on that block and lowers their property values.
And creating workforce / affordable only housing complexes somewhere so we can warehouse everyone drives the opposite effect of creating an inclusive community.
Personally, I love the idea of someone winning the “housing lottery” and getting a $2M condo for pennies on the dollar. It’s deed restricted so they don’t get a financial windfall, but they do get to revel in the luxury aside the other residents.
If Westport passes this, it will become a magnet for more development because as you’ve pointed out, the profit margins will be significantly higher to build in Wepo than in towns where you can’t put the working class somewhere out of sight.