Connecticut s zoning laws a focus in racial equity debate clickorlando.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from clickorlando.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
“Housing policy is at the nexus of so many other policy outcomes,” House Majority Leader Jason Rojas said. “It is.central to the larger debate were having right now about equity and racial justice in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and also in the wake of the disproportionate impact COVID has had on lower income communities and communities of color.”
Lisa Pierce Flores (opinion): Relegating the homeless to the margins of the map
Lisa Pierce Flores
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Dorothy Day Hospitality House in 2018 in Danbury.H John Voorhees III / Hearst Connecticut Media
Last month, the Dorothy Day Hospitality House on Spring Street in Danbury, which offered shelter to some of the city’s poorest residents for 37 years, lost its appeal to remain open. The tool used to shut it down? An obscure zoning violation.
The 16-bed shelter is located in a working-class neighborhood zoned for high-density housing. Zoning regulations require nonprofits wishing to provide shelter for the homeless to obtain an exemption to operate in neighborhoods like Spring Street. The shelter was granted permission to operate by zoning officials in 1983. In addition, for many years it applied for and obtained a license for dormitory use.
Opinion: Fair Share Zoning the right thing, the smart thing
Erin Boggs
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An affordable housing development under construction in Stamford in 2016.File photo
Connecticut is facing a series of crises. We are at the bottom of the barrel in terms of segregation, income inequality, housing affordability, infrastructure and economic mobility and in the bottom half of states for fiscal stability. Over 208,000 families in Connecticut earning less than half of the median income (about $50,000 for a family of four) are paying over half of their income or more towards housing costs. The extent to which COVID-19 has ravaged Black and Latino communities is a palpable reflection of this inequality.
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Architect David Parker shows a rendering of recommended changes to the development planned for 4185 Black Rock Turnpike. (Town of Fairfield)
FAIRFIELD, CT Fairfield residents recently spoke out against a nearly 100-unit affordable housing development planned for Black Rock Turnpike, citing concerns about the project s size and potential effect on traffic, flooding and the character of the surrounding area. They have proposed a building that is too big, it s in the wrong location, and it will create dangerous traffic conditions, said Gordon MacKenzie, a resident of the Greenfield Hunt condos, which neighbor the 2.3-acre property located at 4185 Black Rock Turnpike, just off the Merritt Parkway.