Posted on 09/06/2022 9:37:06 AM PDT by grundle
In the town of Fairfield, Connecticut, nearly 2,400 residents have signed a petition opposing a project proposed for downtown that could bring 19 units of affordable housing.
In nearby New Canaan, homeowners have raised about $84,000 for a legal fund to fight a proposed apartment complex downtown on Weed Street that would include 31 rent-restricted units for households with moderate incomes.
And in Greenwich, a developer recently withdrew an application to build a project that would include 58 apartments priced below market rate, after residents living in nearby luxury condominiums objected
Throughout Fairfield County, Connecticut, local residents and elected officials are seeking to block large housing projects that include units affordable to low- and moderate-income households
The restrictive zoning “disparately harms Black and Latino households, and deepens economic and racial segregation in the area,”
That sort of suburban antipathy to density has contributed to a severe housing shortage in Connecticut, especially at the low- to moderate-income range
many people who work in the towns cannot afford to live
Affordability is a major deterrent to the many teachers in Greenwich who would like to live in town, said Aaron Hull, a longtime educator in town. Hull, who lives in Norwalk, said he and his wife had periodically contemplated moving their family to Greenwich, which he views as a “phenomenal community,” but couldn’t find anything within their price range.
His daily commute on Interstate 95, while only 14 miles, “can take anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes,” he said. “That seat time takes its toll.”
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Keep voting for the blue rats….
Many years ago, I lived in the Gold Rush Foothills of N Calif in a small burg-—with Roseville near enough to do big box shopping.
I got told to attend a meeting about a developer who wanted to build ‘affordable housing’ in this “ONE STOP SIGN AT THE T” burg.
There weren’t enough school facilities—and only grade school at that. NO ‘middle school’. High school got bussed to “town”. 3 STORY units-—taller than even most of nearby “town”—9 miles away. Not sure local VOLUNTEER fire dept could even fight a 3 story fire....or that water to do so as available.
There was NO bus service other than the school busses. We had our own cars/trucks, etc. Rural-—horses everywhere, etc.
The developer was making a speech about the young mothers (no mention of fathers) and their kids being able to move here for ‘fresh air & safer conditions’. Those certainly were BUZZ words.
Sacramento was close by & that town already had a severe gang /black/illegals problem-—THEN...and it WAS spilling over into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.
The rents were supposed to be about 2/3 of local values-—but there also were NO playgrounds for these kids-—or ANY facilities for the “moms’ either. Never got a straight answer about laundry facilities.
Grocery store? Less inventory than a city 7-11.
Post office? Part of another building.
Bank? LOCAL STATE bank—very friendly & knew their customers BY NAME.
Small engine/chain saw repair shop —
A thrift store run by local Hospice.
A small restaurant filled with locals.
2 Feed stores—family operations.
Quite rural.
NO local police-—dependent on County Sheriff’s for law enforcement....AND MOST people in the area were armed.
Bottom line??? NO JOBS of any kind for any of the Moms or teens. NO transportation to get to any job they might find. Most residents had jobs away from the burg-—so their properties would be UNATTENDED every work day.
This guy was trying to sell us a fancy cake with cold lemonade-—but all I saw was LEMONS.
I finally asked him: “Who is going to be renting these units? We already have open rental units in 10 mile radius.”
I then asked him: “ARE THESE UNITS SECTION 8 UNITS”??? I made SURE everyone HEARD MY VOICE.
NO ONE in the audience even knew what I was talking about...they had never heard of Section 8. I explained what Section 8 was. That got them riled up!!!
MR Developer tried to skirt the question-—I refused to let him dodge my question. I kept asking-—louder & LOUDER—over the din of the others in the room.
He finally said “YES”-—but they will be no problem because they will be so GRATEFUL to be out of their current bad conditions”. TOTAL LIE....
He got a chorus of BOOOS-—and the crowd was plenty unhappy about his ‘end run’ with the ‘affordable housing’ story.
I got thanked over & over for getting the “Section 8 “ question out into the open.
He packed up his fancy drawings & BOLTED-—and it all died very quickly at the County Supervisors level. I am pretty sure some financial incentives were in play there-—but NOW the spotlight was on them.
Sorry this is so long-—but it did happen.
Not buying it.
On an interstate?
He'd have to average just 19 mph to cover 14 miles, 9 mph for 90 minutes.
How bout the INSANITY of Los Angeles demanding that every hotel/motel that has a vacancy by 2 PM MUST notify local officials so they can place a HOMELESS person into those empty rooms??? AND NO money for such accommodations-—
Across the board-—such businesses said HELL NO.....
ADD homeless to your narrative.
Not sure about Connecticut, but in LA that would be super fast.
IIRC-—it was to be a 36 unit building...3 stories
it happens every day on I-95 in that part of the country ...
In this same area, Project Veritas just busted an ultra-leftist school administrator.
“” Jeremy Boland, assistant principal at Cos Cob School, a public elementary school in Greenwich, Connecticut, described how he hires “the right teachers.”
Suburban areas came with the railroads in the 1840s. Mount Vernon for the working class and places like Lywellyn Park(?), West Orange, New Jersey for the affluent.
The rich were in large part taxed out of the cities. Woodward Avenue in Detroit was once lined with mansions; now there are five left. The Vanderbilts sold off their 57th Street pile in 1929 (the 1929 property taxes of I believe $129,000 consumed the household income). The last Vanderbilt mansion in Midtown came down in 1947.
I live in a rural area in northern CT.
Like many rural areas in the state we have no affordable housing, regardless of what the law says.
You see, the law can’t create city water and water treatment where it is not economical.
The town can’t afford it, the state can’t afford it, so it does not exist.
That means that multifamily housing is all but nonexistent since it cannot be built with its own septic and well system (again, except for an exorbitant price).
When the real world is in direct conflict with the law, the real world wins—every time.
The affluent will build on clay soils that require multi-acre lots to pass a perc test.
Much of suburban Virginia has such soils.
It is hilarious to look at the demographics of many of the wealthier suburbs and rural areas in Massachusetts.
They have turned segregation into an art form—while decrying racism.
On some other forums (where real racists hang out) I always tell them to forget everything they have ever learned about Massachusetts—in many towns it is the Whitopia they are seeking.
I suspect it’s because most people don’t want crime and feral Black households nearby. It’s sad that I even have to say it.
I remember a news report from the 1980s in which a Black civic activist in St. Louis, Missouri, named Bertha Kranke (sp?) got a variance from the public housing authority to form a regulatory board in her building to kick out unruly residents. After the committee got to work, conditions improved dramatically.
Unfortunately, most public housing projects don’t have a Bertha Kranke.
Zoning came about because New Yorkers were tired of seeing their prime resident areas taken over by industry & commerce.
Midtown Manhattan was once filed with brownstones. The south of 42nd Street area was lost after the 1893 depression.
The people north of 42nd Street feared the same thing would happen to their area.
In 1929 the area that is Rockefeller Center came off long-term leases and was converted by the Rockefellers.
By about 1910, rich New Yorkers no longer felt residential real estate was safe to make in Manhattan. They chose to build in Westchester and Nassau County.
Harlem was developed for high-end housing, but the rich were not going to buy in. A clever black real estate man called A. Peyton Randolph leased entire buildings and guaranteed high returns to building owners and filled them with ‘respectable’ blacks.
I'll bet they have one or two towns like that in Maryland!
Blacks only moved north in large numbers after about 1905. Initially to places like Chicago and Detroit.
The real migration wave north came in the Great Depression, when FDR’s administration refused to offer farm subsidies to sharecropper farms. The desperate blacks fled to northern cities for industrial and domestic employment.
By 1960, Detroit was about 29% black.
In 1938, welfare as we know it was barred to the state by the New York State constitution, I believe.
By the mid-1960s, New York was into welfare big time, after nudging by the federal government. New York State’s generous welfare payments were a magnet for poor southern blacks. A court case around 1968 ruled that the state could not pay out-of-state migrants (i.e. incoming southern blacks) less.
Other generous northern states also got a share of migrating southern blacks.
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