CT Mirror, Published July 10, 2023
Dan Smolnik is a tax attorney and a member of the Hamden Economic Development Commission. Any views expressed are exclusively those of the author.
The acuity of the state’s housing shortage bears repetition. We need 89,000 affordable homes immediately.
The inventory of active real estate listings has declined 79% –from 18,610 in June of 2018 to 10,228 in 2020, to 3,932 in 2023 while the state’s population has increased 1.4%.
The story of this oft-told paradox is usually presented in the context of interest rates, restrictive zoning, and even as part of a larger supply and demand cycle. These explanations each hold merit. However, when we take a closer look at the towns, especially by population size, we observe a distinction, indeed, a bifurcation, in the allocations of their grand lists over time.
This data alerts us to the likelihood of robust internal municipal machinations that work to preserve what many voters in smaller municipalities like to refer to as the “character” of their towns while, in effect, abrogating responsibility for housing resources to the larger towns.