The Lower Connecticut River Valley Council of Governments (RiverCOG) kicked off its regional housing plan project with a presentation to the public on Zoom in mid-October. In addition to a housing analysis, the project will help 12 towns, including Chester, Deep River, and Essex, develop affordable housing plans. These municipal plans are a statutory requirement.

The impetus for a regional housing plan grew out of a regional planning project that RiverCOG recently completed, the Regional Plan of Conservation and Development (RPOCD), according to RiverCOG Senior Planner Megan Jouflas.

She said that the RPOCD provides a good baseline for regional housing, and that the feedback gathered from participants during that project will be incorporated into the housing plan.

There were several common themes from participants about what they would like to see in the region related to housing, according to Jouflas. They include “diversity, inclusivity, and community and also providing for an aging population and attracting and retaining young people,” she said.

The regional housing plan will also build on a future land use map that was created for the RPOCD that looks at different aspects of where people live, taking into account access to utilities, including sewer and water. The map is a tool used by regional planners to identify areas that already have the required infrastructure necessary for development, and natural areas that need preservation.

“We’re not, as of right now, growing in population and so to eat up more of the landscape to development to house a stagnant population doesn’t make a lot of sense,” said RiverCOG Executive Director Sam Gold.

Changing Demographics

Data on demographics presented on Oct. 12 by Don Poland of East Hartford-based Goman+York Property Advisors, LLC, showed how stagnant job growth and anemic population growth in Connecticut overall is affecting the region.

“You guys are no different. Ultimately these population losses, from my perspective, threaten the region’s housing market and socio-economic wellbeing,” Poland said at the Oct. 12 meeting.

He added that with an aging population, if nothing changes in terms of attracting and retaining young people, “between now and the 2030 census, over the next 10 years, you’re going to actually see a bleaker picture at that point in time.”

Changing demographics are dictating a need for housing that is not readily available in the region, he said.

“We’ve shifted away from single-family residential detached toward multi-family and that’s a direct relationship to the changes in the demographic structures, smaller household size, more single persons living alone,” said Poland.

Poland also discussed affordable housing, saying that approximately 31 percent of households in the region pay more than 30 percent of their income on housing.

“So, you see almost a third of your population experiencing a degree of housing being unaffordable. Twenty-six percent of those are homeowners and 48.4 percent of those populations are renters,” said Poland.

“The affordability issue is much more in the rental housing than it is the home ownership housing, but you can’t necessarily ignore the home ownership stuff. It’s in both at meaningful levels,” he continued.

A Wake-Up Call

Gold said that affordable housing is an important component of the regional housing plan, and that “we’re looking at the big picture of housing for everyone.”

He considers demographics and the most recent census data from 2020 as reflective of existing conditions, and said that it doesn’t mean things can’t change.

“I think although it is shocking and sobering, the data that Dr. Poland presents, I think it’s a wake-up call that we need to do things differently and that’s the goal of this plan,” said Gold.

Jouflas added, “We see economic development and jobs as well as transportation being linked to housing. All of those three need to work in tandem if we are going to fix the housing issues.”

This month, the team at RiverCOG will be finalizing its regional housing data analysis and turning it into part one of the plan.

Municipal Affordable Housing Plans

Work on each municipality’s affordable housing plan, which will be an annex to the regional plan, will start in early 2022, with a project completion timeframe of June 2022.

For the municipal plans or annexes, “We’ll be spending a lot of time with each individual town doing outreach and talking to the towns about their specific issues, things like the space issue, and trying to workshop with them together on what would work,” said Jouflas.

Gold added, “RiverCOG is not telling the town what that annex should be; we are facilitating this planning process…and listening to the towns.”

Residents can participate and provide input on their town’s affordable housing plan by participating in a survey, which is available at RiverCOG”s project website, www.rivercog.org/projects/rhp/.