Simplifying Zoning Bureaucracy
Connecticut could empower towns to merge land use commissions.
What are the benefits of reducing red tape?
Cheaper for towns.
Allowing land use boards to be merged into one makes it easier to find volunteers to serve, and to reduce costs.
Smoother applications.
Reducing bureaucracy makes navigating the process more efficient and, therefore quicker and less costly for applicants.
Better planning.
Enabling towns to share zoning commissions or combine their own town commissions can promote stronger planning.
Do you want to reduce red tape for housing?
Ask our state leaders to bring these proposals for a vote!
FAQs
What are your specific proposals? We have two. First, we want to empower each town to create a unified land use commission by merging its zoning commission (or planning and zoning commission) and zoning board of appeals. Second, we want to empower each town to work with other towns and create intermunicipal land use commissions. Currently, towns can’t do either one!
What needs fixing? Zoning applications for new housing are sometimes caught up in red tape. Some delays result when town zoning boards don’t have enough board members available to hold a meeting (in other words - a lack of a quorum). This is especially true in small towns, where it’s hard to find volunteers. State law should change to make it easier for towns to fill out their commissions, and reduce the amount of bureaucracy for applicants at the same time.
What do the boards you’re talking about do? According to Connecticut land use laws, a zoning commission (or combined planning and zoning commission) creates zoning regulations at the local level. Some municipalities designate their legislative body (like New Haven’s Board of Aldermen) as their zoning commission, but most have an independent zoning commission (or combined planning and zoning commission). A zoning board of appeals reviews certain applications and also issues variances, which are the exceptions to the zoning code that are necessary when circumstances require a little flexibility.
Don’t we need separate groups of people to serve these different functions? No. Spreading planning and zoning decisions over two or three different commissions requires two or three times as many people, people who are mostly volunteers or appointees doing this work in their spare time. This complicates scheduling and makes meeting regularly difficult, leading to delays in the administration of applications, particularly in small towns with small volunteer pools.
What about local control? Towns would be completely in charge of whether they choose to merge their commissions internally or with another town.
Has the legislature ever reduced zoning bureaucracy before? Yes! The legislature allows towns to combine a planning commission and a zoning commission to create a combined “planning and zoning commission.” As is the case with this proposal, town leaders would have to vote to simplify their boards further. Outside of land use, the Office of Policy and Management has listed a variety of other state statutes that enable towns to conduct activities together, though these are not specific enough to apply to zoning.