Advocates fear CT senior property tax relief bill could weaken affordable housing law

By Ginny Monk The Connecticut Mirror

Housing advocates are concerned that a bill, which has garnered bipartisan support from members of the Housing Committee, would allow towns to include existing units temporarily in their calculations of affordable housing instead of putting new affordable units on the market.

House Bill 6777 got approval from the Housing Committee at the beginning of March. It would offer prop- erty tax relief to senior citizens who volunteer to deedrestrict their homes as affordable.

“I think this is one of the most imaginative, creative, thoughtful proposals in the entire legislature and I see it as an opportunity to provide real property tax relief for seniors who are hoping to age in place, to incentivize more affordable housing in exactly the communities where we have largely failed to get more affordable housing into those communities by looking at the existing hous- ing stock,” said Rep. Geoff Luxenberg, D-Manchester, chair of the Housing Committee, during a committee meeting.

But advocates worry that the measure would allow those existing units’ affordable designation to be reversed at any point and raised concern that a plan to allow those homes to add points toward a moratorium on new units would weaken the state’s 8-30g affordable housing law.

Connecticut’s 8-30g allows towns that are making progress toward creating more affordable housing to gain points based on the number of new units that go on the market. Those points add up to “moratoriums,” or a set number of years that a town is exempt from court remedies.

Some legislators on the committee said they wanted to see additional tweaks as the bill goes through the lawmaking process.

“If there was ever a time to invoke the work-in-progress doctrine, I think this may be the case, because the concept is good,” said Rep. Joe Zullo, R-East Haven, who voted in favor of the bill.

It’s gained bipartisan support from members of the Housing Committee and comes as lawmakers have been under political pressure to change the decadesold affordable housing law 8-30g.

H.B. 6777, sponsored by Rep. Melissa Osborne, DSimsbury, allows seniors with incomes of up to 80% of the area median income to opt in to the program that deed-restricts their homes as affordable. In exchange, they wouldn’t pay municipal property taxes. The towns could count the unit toward their 10% goals, and the homes count for two points each toward an 8-30g moratorium.

The goal, Osborne said, is to allow seniors to age in place, preserving the affordability of their homes by shielding them from increasing property taxes. It’s not the way to solve the state’s affordable housing crisis, but one approach to help a certain group, she said.

“I really felt that I needed to solve a bunch of concerns to make it amenable to both sides of the aisle,” she said in an interview. “And I really tried to listen to concerns from both groups, because I think it’s important to have community buy-in and buyin from both sides of the aisle.”

8-30g

But, advocates say, the homes are already occupied. The tax credits are also revocable, meaning the homes don’t actually have to stay affordable for the set 40-year period required under 8-30g.

The deed restriction also counts as two points toward a moratorium. The point system as it stands is weighted toward multi-family housing, housing for people with lower incomes and family housing, a system that aims to incentivize towns to zone for the types of housing that they’ve historically been reluctant to allow.

“I see its attractiveness to alleviate the tax burden on more moderate-income seniors that are homeowners,” said Sean Ghio, policy director at Partnership for Strong Communities. “The state already has laws that allow towns to do that, property tax credits for low income senior homeowners.

See Housing, A18