What is your specific proposal?  See our Work Live Ride page. But note, our proposal does NOT require lot-by-lot rezoning: towns can decide to leave some single-family zones exactly as they are.

Under Work Live Ride, a town or city that opts-in has discretion as to how it achieves the overall average of density under its TOC District designation. The P&Z can allow live-work units, mixed-use developments, a mix of single-family and multi-family housing, or simply multifamily housing. They can set architectural standards to ensure that the new housing fits right in. And municipalities with multiple stations can even decide to create a TOC District t around just one of the stations. Work Live Ride allows for a lot of flexibility within statewide benchmarks that recognize the differences in transit infrastructure and population in our communities.

We also propose up to 20% of homes be set aside for affordable housing depending on local market conditions. We estimate less than half a percent of land in the State would be affected by our proposals, but because of the land’s location, it would have a significant positive effect. Here are two images of what 15 homes per acre for Transit Communities looks like:

How many homes would each town have to enable? It will vary by town. To calculate the total number of units required, towns would first take the number of acres within the radius of their transit station(s), and subtract out roadways, wetlands, steep slopes, lands subject to sea-level rise flooding, conservation land, parks, and state-owned land (among other things). After these common-sense exemptions, we guess the land that’s left may be about 25-30% of the land in the radius. Multiply that acreage by 15-30 units per acre depending on the category, and you have the number of units for the town must enable to be built. One estimate suggests as many as 300,000 homes could be permitted under Work Live Ride.

As noted above, the local planning and zoning body will decide what configuration the units will be. There’s lots of flexibility for towns and cities.

What is considered a “transit station”? We define a transit station as a station for commuter rail, bus rapid transit (CTfastrak), or local bus. You can find all of Connecticut’s rapid transit stations (rapid bus or rail) on our Zoning Atlas. We currently do not map local bus service on our atlas.

Does Connecticut have transit-oriented communities? Yes. Transit-oriented communities are the definition of New England Character and define some of our most beloved and successful communities and neighborhoods. We lost our love of them for much of the 20th century, but they are increasingly popular in Connecticut, with local officials and developers working in tandem to bring context-sensitive economic growth to their communities. Successful examples include new construction of Saybrook Station at the Old Saybrook Amtrak/CTrail station, 616 New Park at one of West Hartford’s two CTfastrak stations, and more recent groundbreakings in Fairfield and other towns.

What needs fixing? Our Zoning Atlas and our Issue Brief shows that there is a huge opportunity to unlock the potential of public investment in transit stations. Areas around these stations are often not zoned to satisfy local demand for housing in convenient locations.  

Have any other states adopted a similar proposal? Yes. In 2021, Massachusetts adopted the Housing Choice Act, which required 175 communities with MBTA stations to rezone areas around train stations for 15 homes per acre. The Massachusetts legislation was adopted with bipartisan, near-unanimous support and signed into law by Republican governor Charlie Baker. New York’s Democratic governor Kathy Hochul has also proposed a sweeping transit-oriented zoning proposal in the 2023 session. Be sure to let Governor Lamont know that New York and Massachusetts are closing in on us if you contact him!

Would this new housing help commuters? The Connecticut Department of Transportation reports that half of all state residents travel less than 10 miles to work daily. An additional 30% of the population travel only 10-24 miles to work. That means the vast majority of Connecticut workers travel relatively short distances to get to work. Wouldn’t it be great if more of these workers could ditch their cars and hop on a bus or train, getting to work faster?  Unfortunately, that’s impossible now, because we have built too much housing far away from existing transportation. The result is that 78% of all Connecticut commuters drive alone. By investing in transit oriented communities where people can live, work, and play, we can reduce the amount of driving people have to do. This would reduce the number of drivers on the road, making everyone’s commutes shorter and less expensive. 

Would this new housing reduce heat island effects? Yes. Transit-oriented communities can ensure we pave less and make development more compact, therefore reducing the amount of energy and resources needed for housing and development. Study after study has shown that focusing development around public transportation and helping people reduce their use of single-occupancy cars can mitigate the heat island effect and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This would be especially helpful in the I-95 corridor of Connecticut, which is considered a temperature hot spot.

What about local control? As noted above, our proposal would give towns and cities discretion in creating their TOC District (Our proposal does NOT affect every parcel of land.) “As of right” development just means that the local P&Z determines what they will allow at the district level instead of at the project-by-project level. This gives communities the say they want while simplifying the process for public or private developers down the road - which reduces the cost of the homes we want to see built.