West Hartford resident Jason Wang writes that while the town has been a leader in Connecticut on housing, he offers some suggestions on how we can do more.

By Jason Wang

I woke up this past Wednesday and was dismayed to see that my preferred presidential candidate Kamala Harris was not only defeated, but beaten by a landslide. I think she is a truly decent individual who has America’s best interests at heart. However, I wasn’t surprised by her loss.

I also wasn’t surprised that young people swung heavily to the right. One of the biggest reasons for this seismic demographic shift is turning out to be the cost of housing, which is an issue that the Biden administration has absolutely failed to address. There are important lessons for us in West Hartford.

There is palpable and justified anger among young Americans about their diminished housing opportunities. Without a stable affordable home, young people find it difficult to thrive in society, to date, marry, start a family, and pursue their dreams. Younger generations are becoming more and more likely to live worse lives than their parents’ generation.

As the father of two young children, this literally keeps me up at night. If they don’t want to follow in my footsteps and become a physician or some other highly paid professional, does that mean they will get priced out of their hometown? And if they do become economically successful, will they return to a town that has been stripped of its diversity and values?

We need to be clear and honest with ourselves. If we don’t control housing costs, we are robbing the next generation. We are disrespecting the social contract that has made us successful as a nation. Unnaturally rapid home price appreciation allows the asset-owning class, those who have already climbed onto the ladder of homeownership and possess healthy 401(k)s, to continue the transfer of wealth away from younger and less privileged groups.

Richard Reeves wrote about this presciently in his 2017 book Dream Hoarders, which is about how upper middle class Americans are achieving success and then pulling up the ladder behind them. He called it opportunity hoarding.  Housing restriction is probably the most consequential form of this behavior, and we are seeing its destabilizing effects in this election cycle.

The only effective way to control housing costs is to build housing. Supply needs to meet demand. Yes, building income-restricted affordable housing is helpful, but so-called luxury housing is helpful too. Apartment complexes are helpful. Townhouses and row houses are helpful. Single family homes are helpful. And no, it’s not BlackRock’s fault.

Wall Street has been able to exploit the inefficiency of our housing market to some degree, but the underlying problem is not Wall Street. It’s us. It’s our local zoning laws and regulations. It’s our town council meetings. Homeowners can effectively hoard opportunity and drive up the value of their asset by suddenly being very concerned about traffic and parking when it comes time to welcome new people to our community. That is not right or fair. We need an assertive vision of housing that ensures that young people are not excluded from the American Dream.

West Hartford has actually done a better job of approving housing than most towns in Connecticut.  We have been known throughout the state as a leader on housing, and even in Washington, DC, I recently spoke with a lawmaker’s staffer who recognized that we are saying “yes” to far more homes than our peer towns.

But every new development in town is a new fight. The process for housing approval is far too complex, painful, and arbitrary. Terms like “character” and vague allegations of shadows are allowed to bargain down the number of housing units we build. We need to be clear about what that process does. That bargaining process actively negates the ability of human beings to live in our town, to enjoy the privileges we enjoy, to send their children to our wonderful schools and get them onto the ladder of American prosperity.

It is a violation of the social contract when we hoard housing opportunities. Every time we say “no” to housing, we further restrict the housing supply. This represents nothing less than a continuous wealth transfer from generations who do not own and cannot afford assets to those who do and can.

In just the last five years, housing costs in our town have spiked. What that means practically is many of us would no longer be able to call West Hartford home if we tried to move here today. In 2019 our average home value according to Zillow was $291,000.  Today that number is $460,000, a 58% price increase in five years. This rapid price appreciation is not economically healthy. We need to stabilize our housing prices so that young people and middle class families, the bedrock of our society, are not priced out of our town.

Therefore, I ask that West Hartford’s leaders do the following:

• Continue to approve housing applications that do not pose clear health or safety risks. Traffic risks should be considered separately as part of our Vision Zero program, and should not be used to bargain down housing units.
• Significantly expand zones where housing can be built as-of-right – meaning with administrative approval to ensure compliance with town regulations, but without the subjectivity involved with protracted public debates.
• Reduce the steps in housing approvals, so that projects do not suffer from “death by a thousand cuts,” such as endless requests for studies, minor aesthetic modifications, and other low-yield interventions.
• Eliminate all mandatory parking minimums and allow owners of parking lots to repurpose excess parking space for housing and other useful purposes.Allow businesses and homeowners to decide how much parking they need.
• Establish clear debate guidelines restricting the use of character, shadows, and other nebulous factors as rationale to reject housing.While these concepts can be useful to discuss in the planning process, they should not be valid reasons to reject or bargain down housing units.
• Broadcast council meetings via teleconferencing, so that working families and others with complex schedules can participate.Too often, those who represent the future of our town have the least ability to engage in the democratic process.
• Increase investment in meaningful transportation alternatives, so that the need to house humans is not silenced by the need to accommodate cars.

I’d like to end this Op-Ed by recognizing everyone who continues to believe in and work on the American experiment. I think this election has clearly been about economic frustration, with housing costs being the most painful. A huge number of Millennials have aged into their prime homebuying years just as a global pandemic disrupted the economy. The situation has been further exacerbated by high interest rates, severe inflation, and restrictive housing policies which prevent the market from responding to demand.

In West Hartford we are further affected by the extremely dysfunctional New York and Boston housing markets. Younger generations are feeling these pressures most acutely. West Hartford has been a leader in Connecticut on housing, but we must do more. Let’s beat this problem, share our community generously, and provide young people the opportunities they deserve.

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