CT town close to settling case with developer. A smaller version of the ‘attainable housing’ would be built.
Despite some public opposition, Simsbury is on the verge of settling a lawsuit with a New York-based developer in a deal that would allow 48 “attainably priced” apartments near the center of one of central Connecticut’s wealthiest suburbs.
The compromise would give Vessel Technologies another victory in its fight to expand in the Connecticut market, a campaign it portrays as a way to make modern apartments available to working-class people who are mostly priced out of the new construction market.
Vessel initially wanted to construct 80 units on four floors, but is accepting the compromise that would scale that back by 40% in a building of just three floors.
If a judge approves the agreement on Thursday, Glastonbury would be left as the only town defending against a Vessel lawsuit centered on Connecticut’s controversial 8-30g affordable housing law. The company was pursuing a similar case against Rocky Hill, but dropped it last year when town planners authorized it to build 96 apartments at a different location.
At the heart of the controversy is 8-30g, the Connecticut law that gives developers of affordable housing enormous leeway in determining what to build and where.
The law restricts most communities’ power to approve or deny low-cost housing plans, particularly for aesthetic reasons. Instead, the town must demonstrate the plan raises a significant health or safety risk before they can reject it.
Advocates see 8-30g as an important step to expanding the supply of affordable homes, especially in wealthier, more exclusive suburbs where market-rate prices historically keep out moderate-income earners, the poor and people of color. Opponents argue that 8-30g wrongly bypasses local control of development, drives down property values, does little to improve housing inequities and mostly benefits the developers.
Vessel in early 2023 cited 8-30g when it proposed building 77 one-bedroom apartments and three two-bedroom units at 446 Hopmeadow St. The company agreed to set aside 24 of them as designated affordable housing, which means capping rents for the next 40 years at a level that could be covered by a family making 80 percent of the median income in town.
Vessel later modified its plan to just 64 units, but residents complained that parking would be insufficient on the 2-acre tract at 466 Hopmeadow St. The zoning commission concluded that tenants and guests would create hazards by parking along busy Route 10, and rejected the application.
Vessel responded by suing, claiming Simsbury didn’t cite legally acceptable grounds for rejecting a plan that meets 8-30g standards. Lawyers for Vessel and the town negotiated the proposed settlement, which allows 46 apartments with a smaller parking lot.
Neighbor Ann McDonald and others told commissioners they were frustrated at having no say in the negotiated agreement.
“There are some key issues that have never been solved. We know everybody is being pressured into this,” she said.
Vessel’s plan would change the grade of the property in a way that would create damaging water runoff to neighbors’ tracts, she said.
“This is our property being destroyed,” she said. “In 10 years when our whole bank is washed away, who do we sue? The town because your engineers allowed it? Vessel? They’re going to have made their money and be long gone.”
A Hartford Superior Court judge is scheduled to review the settlement proposal on Thursday.
If it goes through, Vessel will have just one lawsuit target left: Glastonbury. Planners there rejected its proposal for 48 apartments at 51 Kreiger Lane, and Vessel is claiming that vote violates 8-30g.
In the suit, Vessel said Glastonbury has less than 5.6% of its housing designated as affordable, far below the state’s goal of 10% for each community. Glastonbury’s figure is mostly unchanged since 1994, the company said, claiming “This fact can only be interpreted as lack of attention to, and/or active resistance to, additional affordable housing during the past 33 years.”
But Glastonbury’s attorney denied the town had any animosity toward affordable housing, and instead rejected the Vessel plan because the property is in an industrial zone.
Judge Edward O’Hanlan has indicated a trial could be held as early as mid-March.
Not all of Connecticut has been as difficult for Vessel, which has a business model of choosing very small properties as sites for its easy-to-assemble, partly modular buildings with small apartments, green energy features and modern but stark architecture.
The company has already built a complex in New London, and won relatively swift acceptance for another in Cheshire.
N.Y. developer plans more prefabricated apartment buildings in at least two CT towns. Two said no.
