Source: Kevin Maloney, CCM

For Immediate Release
Kevin Maloney (203) 710-3486

CCM publishes third issues bulletin in 2022 election campaign series — Housing and Economic Development

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM) today (Wednesday, October 5) released its third issues bulletin in CCM’s 2022 election campaign series — Housing and Economic Development.

This election season CCM is focused on bringing municipal issues to the forefront, with a particular focus on educating candidates and the public on specific issues impacting local government.

Over the coming weeks, CCM will continue to release a series of "issue bulletins" highlighting some of those challenges. Our goal is to inform the public and candidates about these issues so we can effectively work with policymakers and our partners to address and provide sustainable solutions. 

The bulletin series is examining key Connecticut state-local issues. The bulletin being released today provides an overview on housing, including affordable housing, and economic development.  Future bulletins will focus on labor issues impacting towns and cities, local public education services and finances, and infrastructure and transportation. 

“CCM remains a ready and willing partner to assist in the development of public policy at the state and local level,” said Joe DeLong, CCM Executive Director and CEO. “Together we can collectively develop innovative and strategic plans and proposals on affordable housing and economic development. In that effort, we are committed to working with all of our partners — both in state government and other stakeholders — to make Connecticut an attractive place to live and work.”

Click on the following link -- https://youtu.be/QNXKa3ZKmLQ -- for the complete video message on housing and economic development from Luke Bronin, Mayor of Hartford and CCM President, and Danielle Wong, Mayor of Bloomfield.

Click on this link to review the complete issues report: https://www.ccm-ct.org/Portals/CCM/PDF/IssueBulletins/IssueBulletin_2022_Housing.pdf?ver=hzbRDOkaY1BtEcIa9kQHiA%3d%3d

Some key points include:

• Corporations considering locating or expanding in Connecticut must recruit and retain employees. This not a new challenge for the state, in 2015 the Connecticut Tax Panel concluded that the property tax in Connecticut is regressive and that it has a detrimental impact on economic development.
• Towns and cities throughout Connecticut have significant potential for accommodating transit oriented, mixed-use development, which includes housing. Transit Oriented Development (TOD) in particular focuses on integrated planning to bring people, activities, buildings, and public space together around a central transit system is part of that effort. 
• The creation of mixed-use development, especially in existing buildings, is an economic multiplier that creates jobs, renovates under-utilized and often blighted properties that, when completed, can spur neighborhood revitalization, increase local grand lists and property values. Incorporating transit and mixed-use development helps towns and cities retain their unique charm and provide the type of housing that is in high demand among younger people as they enter the workforce. 
• Many municipalities in Connecticut have been successful in leveraging strategic partnerships to create mixed-used development. Despite successes like this, current state policies continue to require local governments to be over reliant on regressive property taxes to fund their operations, and state aid is increasingly insufficient and unpredictable, which makes it difficult to fund schools, provide for public safety and maintain vital infrastructure.  
• Connecticut’s large cities face enormous challenges in housing, social services, and education.  Compared to other CT communities they have higher rates of unemployment and homelessness and more students learning English as a second language. These cities also have significant transitory populations, which causes an ebb and flow in providing essential transportation, public safety and public health services.  
• These cities also serve as a hub for surrounding communities as arts and cultural centers, and in providing health care and other key social services to their entire region. Without adequate funding, these essential services are at risk of being cut.  Culturally vibrant, economically successful cities help to entice young workers to come to and stay in Connecticut.
• Our larger urban areas and inner ring suburbs face a multitude of revenue challenges including a high percentage of property that is exempt -- by state mandate -- from property taxation, including colleges, hospitals, and state-owned real property.  Even though the state provides payment-in-leu-of-taxes (PILOT) to partially offset this exemption, this program has been woefully underfunded over the years and is an unreliable source of revenue.
• CCM has worked to address this issue.  In 2017, we released a comprehensive report This Report is Different that outlines a new path forward for towns and cities and makes the case that we cannot solve our ongoing fiscal, housing, economic development problems by relying exclusively on spending cuts or property tax increases.  

Long-term solutions must be comprehensive and may contain proposals that fall outside of everyone’s ideological comfort zones.  CCM’s State and Local Partnership panel, which developed the report, included 21 municipal leaders representing cities, suburban and rural communities, Republicans and Democrats.  The panel offered recommendations that would enable towns and cities to: diversify local revenue; provide needed cost containment strategies; and encourage savings through increased regional collaboration.  

The solutions laid out in the report should be the basis to begin the process to ease the regressive burden imposed by the property tax and to encourage economic development, which will include more affordable homeownership and diverse housing options. These proposals would also enable towns and cities to maintain current services, improve and expand infrastructure and provide the needed economic stability to promote economic development and the creation of a diverse housing stock.

CCM hopes the series of bulletins will provide candidates for state office — and the public — with perspectives on the challenges facing Connecticut towns and cities, and provide viable solutions on matters of importance to local residents of our great state.