Lawmakers to vote on scaled-back housing bill amid deep party divide

CT Examiner – Monday, November 10, 2025
By Robert Storace

HARTFORD — State lawmakers will convene in special sessions over two days this week on a revised housing bill that waters down a controversial provision while easing parking restrictions.

Though a compromise took months to hammer out, Democrats and Republicans remain far apart on their support for the measure.

Two Republicans told CTExaminer on Monday that the newest version of the bill is expected to have no GOP support, while Democrats said they expect to pick up more Democratic support.

The latest version was primarily negotiated by House Majority Leader Jason Rojas, D-East Hartford, Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, D-Norwalk, and the Gov. Ned Lamont’s office. There was also input from housing advocates and entities including the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities and the Connecticut Council of Government.

The legislation focuses heavily on a regional approach. The latest proposal, received by all lawmakers Friday, aims to ease the concerns of municipal leaders by removing state mandates from the original bill and instead offering opt-in options and incentives for towns to build more housing.

Although several GOP town leaders attended a Friday press conference in favor of the new changes, it’s unlikely Republican lawmakers will be voting for the bill.

“I will not be supporting it and I can’t imagine any Republican will be supporting it,” said State Rep. Tony Scott, R-Monroe, and ranking member on the Housing Committee. “I’ve heard from many different municipalities saying they want us to protect local control. There are still many things in the bill that still attack local control. … This is not a drastic change from Fair Share. … It’s just maybe a different way to get to the [mandated] number than what Fair Share was doing, but ultimately the same result.”

Scott said the current proposed legislation “is a little better” than the previous version because “it took a lot of their [municipal leaders] complaints into action and made some tweaks. Did the tweaks go as far as I would like to see? No.”

State Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, a GOP candidate for governor, also expressed opposition to the new proposal.

“I think it is nearly as bad as the last one that passed,” Fazio said Monday. “And the process by which this is being done is equally bad. Not only will I oppose it, I’ll vigorously oppose it.”

Fazio said the bill appears to give “more power to the Council of Government, which is another concern. It certainly takes away local control in many ways. There are no shortages of reasons to oppose this bill on its face.”

Fazio also criticized that lawmakers received the latest language of the 99-page bill late Friday, less than a week before they are scheduled to vote on it.

“It’s a very, very major piece of legislation — one of the most significant pieces of housing law potentially in decades — and we got it Friday evening and have to vote on it Wednesday [and Thursday] without a public hearing. … I think that’s extremely unreasonable. … This is 100 pages that constitutes an affront to local control of decision making for towns and cities in Connecticut and home rule in Connecticut, which is a time-honored tradition.”

Fazio is the only GOP candidate to have officially entered the race for governor; New Britain Mayor Erin Stewart is expected to end her exploratory run for governor and announce she is officially a candidate within four weeks. Lamont took out papers to run for a third term late Friday.

State Rep. Gregg Haddad, D-Mansfield, said Friday he will likely vote for the bill. Noting that last-minute tweaks could be added prior to a vote, Haddad said, “I want to see the black-and-white version before I make an ironclad commitment.”

“I think that the problem of affordable housing and overall housing development in Connecticut is significant enough for me to want to do something positive to help address those issues …” he added. “I was prepared to go further [with Fair Share provisions] but the legislation is a step forward.”

State Rep. Antonio Felipe, D-Bridgeport, co-chair of the Housing Committee, said while the current proposal is “not as good” as the original, it is still “a direct positive step” and he will vote to approve it.

“I am absolutely comfortable supporting it,” Felipe said. “It’s really important to note the amount of work that went into this, especially by our majority leader, Jason Rojas. … Is it everything we wanted? Of course it isn’t.”

Felipe said he expects more Democrats to support the latest housing bill version. Eighty-four of the 102 Democrats in the House and 20 of the 25 in the Senate supported the original bill.

The so-called Fair Share provision in the original vetoed bill called for the state to assign each town a target number of new affordable housing units, with a goal of building 120,000 qualifying affordable housing units across Connecticut within a decade or face the possible loss of state funding.

Under the current housing bill, towns will take the lead with support via their Councils of Government. Those communities — working with their regional COG — will decide together how best to allocate affordable housing over five years depending on demographic changes and existing or planned infrastructure. Regional COGs, according to the proposed bill, will also conduct housing need assessments.

The proposed bill states that each municipality, except for those that have elected to comply with a regional housing growth plan, need to submit their plan to the state Office of Policy & Management. If OPM rejects the housing plan, the bill states that the agency must provide written notice for the reasons for the rejection and amendments needed for a new plan.

Parking requirements are loosened in the new bill too.

The compromise bill would reduce the scale of development from 24 to 16 units, which would be exempt from parking requirements. The bill also caps parking requirements for larger developments and allows developers to further lower requirements by submitting a detailed study. A parking needs assessment, according to the bill, would be paid for by the developer.

Other highlights of the bill include that any municipality that has adopted a transit-oriented district before Jan. 1 can be eligible to receive funding from a housing growth program for developments in the district.

The housing commissioner, using available bond funds, would also be authorized to create and oversee a grant program to help housing authorities expand “middle housing” in towns with populations of 50,000 or fewer.

In Connecticut, middle housing includes multiunit options like duplexes, triplexes and townhouses that are located between single-family homes and large apartment complexes.

The original bill would have allowed any commercially zoned property to be converted, by right, into developments of between two and nine apartments. But that language is no longer in the latest housing bill, according to Rojas, ”because we include a process by which a proposal would be subject to summary review by the town. The process continues to reduce regulatory burdens for a project while providing the towns the certainty that a project will still abide by other zoning regulations.”

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