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bigolemoose t1_jber0gt wrote

Connecticut is full of the most "leopards ate my face" people I've ever seen.

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RededHaid t1_jbeojn4 wrote

Guess what happens when a house gets put on the open market? My neighborhood went from for sale signs every where to orange license plates on weekends. The mom and pop stores benefit. Your CT isn't the only CT.

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fprintf t1_jbeqyli wrote

Mom and pop stores do not benefit. My friends are store owners (furniture, gift stores, hardware) in one of these towns that has seen an influx of weekend New Yorkers and they have seen an absolute decrease in business as "locals" have moved out. These weekend-only folks do not bring new business with them at all. They arrive by car with everything already from home and then leave without really shopping locally.

It is a serious problem, though time will tell if this trend will continue or if the NY folks will set down some roots and establish new patterns of behavior. But right now it sucks.

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RededHaid t1_jberwwn wrote

Oh Bother. Your talking to an owner. We have benefitted from city folk for years so word of mouth helps. My wife and I don’t even find it odd anymore how we learn more about our own community from our new neighbors thanks to their fresh eyes. There’s always been a local element who disliked distrusted newcomers. Life has no guarantees. If people are moving out, embrace the newcomers before they find someplace that will welcome them while turning their place where you are into a shitty air bee and be.

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fprintf t1_jbesq3y wrote

Nice that you are having a different experience than my friends who were complaining. Perhaps it is the town and how transitory it is? My friends are in Madison/Guilford/Old Saybrook, which might explain some of it?

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RededHaid t1_jbetcz3 wrote

Perhaps. I like that area and do believe in supporting local, even while traveling. Good luck to your friends and community.

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EmperorAnthony t1_jbepyro wrote

Then don’t NIMBY every inch of Connecticut to a point where housing shortages including affordable housing causes prices to continue to skyrocket to a point where only people from the NYC area can afford to buy them. We need to make it affordable for people who already live here because the system as it stands right now won’t make Connecticut grow.

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Esrianna t1_jbew52l wrote

NIMBY. Learned a new word today. Thanks for that.

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houle333 OP t1_jbesyj3 wrote

Spoken like someone that doesn't realize just how absurdly cheap houses are in significant parts of rural CT.

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EmperorAnthony t1_jbetrre wrote

And yet do you realize how hot our markets are compared to other parts of the country. The prices and the demand speak for themselves

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[deleted] t1_jbfpy0u wrote

>absurdly cheap

Cheaper sure, but not absurdly cheap. That's laughable.

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[deleted] t1_jbevsb5 wrote

theres a lot areas of this state that became over developed suburb post ww2. I really dont want my farm town in Eastern CT to turn into Glastonbury or East Hartford. You have to have some degree of zoning to keep that out. A big issue in my area is most locals cant afford to buy houses here because the inflated house prices. Everything just gets bought out by transplants that work from home, or by rental investors. 150k starter house is now 250k-300k here. I dont think people really realize how quickly things change around them when you allow easy development. My grandfather literally tells me stories of growing up on dirt roads with tobacco farms all around Windsor/Glastonbury/EH when he was growing up in the 40s/50s and its ALL gone. My grandmother grew up in Bloomfield right by the big cemetery and it was all farmland. Zoning helps slow this... If you get rid of NIMBY you end up with towns like Ellington and South Windsor that lost their soul to development in the last two decades. Seriously look at google earth, its so heartbreaking how fast those towns got developed.. all that beautiful farmland gone forever. Problem is when they DO build houses in my area they almost always seem to be upscale expensive homes that are EXPENSIVE and attract a certain type of audience aka yuppie snobs. I honestly think affordable “working man” subdivisions are a thing of the past in most parts of this state. Theres just not enough land anymore and its filling up.

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kayakyakr t1_jbf2rnz wrote

The problem is not zoning that allows building. Eventually money will win out and land will be developed.

Fighting development means that you have less power to control what kind of development you see. If you want to protect farmland, you allow new construction in the town center, decrease lot size requirements in town center, allow and even encourage ADU's on lots of all sizes, and allow small multifamily (duplex to 4-plex) on large lots. You also want to encourage the small "starter" homes through quick-and-easy permitting reform to allow houses sub 2k sq ft express permitting and encouraging modular (not mobile) construction practices. You can also do lot splits with the requirement that any houses built on the new lots be under a certain sq ft size or cap sq footage as a function of lot size or zone, but I like those options less.

Your complaint that house prices have jumped is because inventory is too low. There are always going to be investors looking to buy up houses and either flip or rent them. When new inventory is consistently being built, rental prices in your town come down and individuals have a better chance of securing a purchase. It doesn't take much to do. Voluntown, for example, could get by with maybe 10-20 new houses a year? But that's not what's happening.

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[deleted] t1_jbf5c3i wrote

I was mostly just rambling so sorry if any of my points werent clear or connected properlly. I do however agree with lots of what you said.... and onto more rambling by me......The town next door needs something like what you said. Right now they require 200ft of frontage 1.2ish acre min and has to have 6 frontage lots for every rear lot in subdivision. Dead end subdivsion culdesacs are limited to 10ISH maybe 12 houses... then the town makes the developer put a high% of each lot of a chunk of land into open space.. ie 40 acres has 10 , 2 acre lots and rest goes into conservation. Just ridiculous.. the only reason I can think of why they made it so restrictive was because a large part of it is a lake town that went through sprawl in the late 70s,80s, 90s and these regs were the solution to slow down development in early 00s which seems to of worked. But now P&Z is recognizing the negative effects and are looking to ease the regs, ie 150ft lot frontage instead 200.. or 15-20 house on culdesac vs 10/12. Still not enough though.

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kayakyakr t1_jbfuwah wrote

Voluntown has solved this pretty well, in some areas, with zone overlays. It still needs work, but the lake zone and town center zone overlays have been effective at creating pretty good development over the years.

I think we'll have to update regs on the main zones and general regs, though, because we're running into issues with new construction being solely in the 3k sq ft range and a low number of empty or new lots being sold. Town center zoning could expand; we could drop rear lot size (4 acres -> 2 acres) and limits (3 -> 5); we should allow ADU's on all lots and encourage their construction, especially in town center, through tax breaks for ADU's used as long term rentals; I'm also a fan of the idea of creating a town center center zoning overlay that encourages 2-over-1 mixed-use buildings (home or apartments over commercial).

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CoarsePage t1_jbf9d55 wrote

Damn the state economy, the poor, and anyone younger than me. I want to spend my last days staring at cornfields.

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[deleted] t1_jbenhc3 wrote

Yep. Live in one of the last real farm towns in eastern ct and id say 3 out of 4 people that bought houses since covid housing boom were in fact from NYC. Then they get on the town pages and start complaining about manure and gunshots.... (and I know because I keep a very close track of houses sold and who buys them in my area) oh and my personal favorite, is them complaining about a lack of town services because they moved to a country town. It wouldnt even be a big deal but the consequences of transplants and sprawl have the effect of completely changing the local community, values, and culture of area. Usually for the worse. Theres plenty of towns that have already lost their way from sprawl wish it didnt have to ooze into the lot of them.

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houle333 OP t1_jbeo17e wrote

Wait till they whine about wanting sidewalks for a "walkable" downtown. Then the town will waste millions on a sidewalk from the library to the church that none of the new yorkers go to.

And fcking demand for dog parks "there's no where safe to walk my dog there are too many cars on the back country roads in the town that no one has even heard of, this community of 5 acre zoned rural farm houses needs dog parks and 12 square feet pollinator gardens"

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throwaway_5863 t1_jbffpz2 wrote

Imagine being mad about sidewalks

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Bobobobopedia t1_jbfqbbn wrote

This dude is crazy. Walkable neighborhoods that prioritize people and mobility over cars will always be more desirable and do better than single family car dependent areas. It’s simple math. A lot of Rhee people will never understand that middle density still helps affordability and creates resilient prosperous areas. They just think “they are going to take my house away” .. no. Let’s just open up more areas to have the flexibility they desire. You won’t get through to people like this sadly.

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Connecticut-ModTeam t1_jbfpu94 wrote

Hi, r/Connecticut is focused on Connecticut related items. Your post was removed for not being relevant and specific to Connecticut. Regards, The Moderators

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mkt853 t1_jbf6w5i wrote

Let's not forget without NYC Connecticut is basically West Rhode Island.

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