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kayakyakr t1_jbf2rnz wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Don't NYC my Connecticut by houle333

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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