When I first started working on affordable housing policy in the early 1990s, the field was characterized by a remarkable degree of bipartisan collaboration. Federal housing policy consisted of a mix of ideas proposed initially by Republicans and Democrats, and Congress regularly expanded the number of families receiving federal rental assistance, regardless of which party was in office.
Over the past 25 years, I’ve seen a sharp rise in political polarization. With Americans increasingly consuming different media and geographically sorting themselves by ideology, our political dialogue has hardened. Rather than seeking to identify opportunities for collaboration and compromise, national commentators double-down on sharply divergent visions, describing the views held by their opponents in the least generous terms, setting up straw men that are easily torn down.
I’d like to think that things are different at the local level. But when a Norwich resident asked me recently whether the Planning Commission really wanted to build 5,000 affordable housing units in Norwich, I was reminded that we have our own traditions of polarized dialogue. Of course we don’t, I explained. That would be crazy! Well, that’s what people are saying, she explained.
Sadly, it appears that in Norwich, as in the U.S., understanding each other’s positions has taken a back seat to characterizing the views of others in the least generous light, stoking fears and making it easier to dismiss those views out of hand.
We can do better. There will always be disagreements, but let’s at least try to fairly understand each other’s views. And then let’s engage constructively to try to reach common ground.
To actively engage our neighbors and develop constructive solutions to identified challenges, the Planning Commission will hold a series of conversations with members of the public this fall to further discuss an affordable housing strategy for Norwich. Rather than giving up on efforts to develop affordable housing (see May 28 Valley News editorial, “Not in Norwich”) or ramming through an extreme “megadevelopment zoning proposal” (as suggested in a June 15 column, “Don’t Blame Norwich for Shortage of Affordable Housing), our plan is to use a process of resident engagement to build greater consensus and goodwill for a meaningful plan to expand the affordability of housing in Norwich.
While an op-ed is no substitute for in-person conversation, I’d like to share my personal views here in a structured way. Following a community-building approach, I address below three questions: What motivates me to become involved? What is my vision for making things better? What can we do to move the process forward? I look forward to hearing others’ views on these same questions.
What motivates me to become involved? I feel extraordinarily fortunate to be able to live in Norwich. It’s a beautiful town, full of thoughtful and kind people. The schools are fantastic and we’re just a short drive from a regional center of culture and learning. My main concern is that Norwich is increasingly becoming a place where only the wealthy can afford to live. With housing prices nearly doubling over the past 15 years, it’s becoming harder and harder for families with moderate incomes to afford to live here. This makes it less likely my children will have an opportunity to meet people with different incomes and backgrounds in school. And it means fewer opportunities for people of moderate incomes to benefit from our high-quality schools, even as research confirms that the neighborhood in which one grows up has a powerful impact on one’s future economic success.
What is my vision for making things better? My personal hope would be that, over the next 10 to 15 years, Norwich would facilitate the development of another 100 to 150 units of housing at a range of price points, beyond the handful of units currently being permitted. I’d like to see a large share of these units rent or sell at below-market levels. Because property taxes in Norwich are already high, I’d like to see these units built in a way that does not increase taxes, which means we’ll need to build in close-in areas that are easy for the town to serve. We’ll also need to access subsidies or take advantage of economies of scale (or both) to make the projects feasible.
What can we do to move the process forward? I wish we could have already started our planned discussion series on affordable housing. However, Norwich has a more pressing planning issue, which is the expiration of the Town Plan. If our last Town Plan had been developed under the state rules now in place, it would have had an eight-year life, and still be valid. However, our town plan falls under the old rules, so it expired after five years. State legislators extended the time frame to eight years because they recognized that a five-year cycle is burdensome for small towns. To reduce the burden, the Planning Commission is proposing to reinstate the prior Town Plan, with updates to respond to changes in state law and comments from the regional planning commission. We then plan to work in the coming years on more comprehensive updates to individual chapters to reflect the outcomes of further discussions on affordable housing and other issues, such as energy.
There has been very little development under the existing Town Plan, so reinstating it will certainly not lead to large-scale growth. To further allay concerns, the plan also includes language indicating that it does not authorize a new zoning district on Route 5 South.
So step one, reinstate the Town Plan. This will ensure the town is once again eligible for applicable tax credits and state grants. Step two, continue our outreach efforts by initiating a new community engagement process and feedback loop to shape the town’s affordable housing strategy going forward.
I look forward to the dialogue.
Jeffrey Lubell is a member of the Norwich Planning Commission. He has served as executive director of the Center for Housing Policy in Washington, D.C., and held a senior career policy position at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He is currently the director of housing and community initiatives at Abt Associates, a mission-driven research and consulting firm focused on strengthening social policy.