A proposed bill that would require Connecticut cities and towns to plan and zone for a set number of new housing units is gaining traction in Hartford.

The “Towns Take the Lead” bill is one of several proposed this legislative session by Growing Together Connecticut, a consortium of over 45 organizations working to break down barriers to affordable housing.

Advocates and key lawmakers said Monday they want to see towns plan and zone for a set number of new housing units — a policy that would be enforced by the state government — as one of several measures meant to make sure families can afford a place to live.

The proposal, which resembles sections of a fair share plan proposed in the past, was part of the legislative agenda shared by Growing Together Connecticut, a consortium of advocates and religious groups, during a press conference in Hartford.

Connecticut has the most constrained housing supply in the nation, with only about a 7% vacancy rate despite a demand for more, and the state needs at least 110,000 more units to meet the need, researchers told lawmakers on Thursday.

Researchers from consulting firm ECOnorthwest presented an early draft of their findings about Connecticut’s housing need to key lawmakers on the Housing and Planning and Development committees on Thursday. The presentation was done in response to a law passed in 2023 that mandated a statewide study on a fair share zoning policy.

Connecticut needs an additional 110,702 units of new housing — and possibly far more — to meet demand statewide, according to a report commissioned by the legislature and presented to lawmakers Thursday.

Housing needs are especially acute in the Hartford region and southwestern Connecticut, the report found.

"Connecticut is the most constrained housing market of any state in the country," said Michael Wilkerson, who co-authored the report, citing the state's low vacancy rate. "And so for us, that's indicative of ... a very challenged housing market in terms of affordability and availability of housing."

Housing advocates have joined the fight to prevent the state of Connecticut from approving a moratorium on affordable housing for the town of New Canaan under the state’s decades-old affordable housing law.

Open Communities Alliance (OCA), a civil-rights organization that advocates for fair housing, filed an intervenor brief late last year in support of a declaratory ruling to revoke a moratorium that the state Department of Housing approved for New Canaan last summer.

With vacancy rates low, rents high, home-ownership out of reach for many residents and homelessness rising year after year, Connecticut clearly has a housing problem.

The question, posed annually around this time, is what state lawmakers might do about it.

In recent years, Connecticut's legislature has considered sweeping proposals to reshape housing policy in the state, only to land on more modest solutions. This has increasingly irked advocates, who say the state is short more than 98,000 affordable rental units.

Policy proposals and debate about the availability and affordability of buying a home or renting, which along with zoning are controversial issues at the state and local level in Connecticut, are getting new national recognition in this year’s presidential campaign.

Both of the major party tickets have discussed it to varying degrees as voters across the U.S. struggle with costs associated with housing, utilities and groceries. Renters in Connecticut spend about a third of their income on rent, a Consumer Affairs report found. And house prices in the state were up nearly 10% year-over-year in the first few months of 2024 as housing stock remained low.

For groups in Connecticut focused on housing policy, it is encouraging to see it in the spotlight, though they believe some issues remain unaddressed in the candidates’ platforms like homelessness, rent caps and tenants’ rights. Others want housing prioritized locally with the federal government directing attention to other economic issues.

Connecticut is years into a crippling housing crisis, and the situation is only getting worse. Home prices are up nearly 10 percent just in the past year, even as a recent study found the state was the worst in the nation for renters. Meanwhile, action at the General Assembly to deal with the crisis has been slow and halting.

To face a problem of this magnitude — which hurts families and hinders our economy by making it harder for companies to fill open positions — it’s necessary to offer a solution equal to the challenge. To that end, our organization, Hartford-based civil rights nonprofit Open Communities Alliance, has in recent sessions recommended Fair Share Planning and Zoning. It is a proposal that builds on existing state zoning laws to allocate affordable housing needs to towns across the state and require that municipalities adjust their planning and zoning to allow for the needed housing to be built.

Finding housing in Connecticut has long been a challenge. And it’s only getting more challenging.

The state’s housing vacancy rate is about half the national average. The state lacks about 92,000 affordable housing units. A recent report declared that Connecticut is the worst state in the U.S. for renters.

Experts have been sounding the alarm on the state’s affordable housing crisis for years. They say the state’s lack of supply is due in large part to exclusionary zoning — stringent zoning rules that make it difficult to build.

Internal emails exchanged among high ranking officials at Connecticut’s Department of Housing last year reveal deep fissures between top Democratic lawmakers and higher-ups in the executive branch on a zoning reform policy idea known as “fair share.”

The back-and-forth between higher-ups at the Department of Housing shows that in 2023, as lawmakers were debating the fair share policy, staff lodged staunch objections to the idea. The emails, obtained by The Connecticut Mirror through a public records request, have left some lawmakers questioning DOH’s commitment to reducing racial and economic housing segregation.