Once in a while legislative bodies come up with a well-meaning but hopelessly misguided law. So misguided that a reasonable person might read it and say to themselves, “What the hell were they thinking?”
Prohibition in the 1920s is a prime example. The scourge of alcohol abuse in America, identified by societies like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, prompted Congress in 1919 to pass the 18th Amendment outlawing the sale of “intoxicating liquors” in the United States.
The result was a dismal failure. Illicit sales of alcohol flourished (causing a renaissance of organized crime no less; think Al Capone) and consumption rose to levels well above those that were in effect even before Prohibition.
Connecticut’s General Statute 8-30g is another example of misplaced legislative intentions.
Section 8-30g was designed to increase affordable housing units across the state. A compassionate and worthy goal – so far, so good. Now the bad. It does this by allowing real estate developers to override local zoning regulations if a municipality has less than 10% of its housing stock designated as “affordable.”
Those developers can automatically bypass local zoning regulations entirely if they incorporate affordable housing into their business plan. The law requires that a town’s zoning authority must approve an 8-30g plan unless there is a significant (think earth shattering) safety or environmental problem. No other reasons are permitted. Period.
How successful has 8-30g been? Well, when it was enacted in 1989 there were 31 out of Connecticut’s 169 cities and towns that had affordable housing stock of more than 10%. The number of those same municipalities having more than 10% in 2026, nearly four decades later? The same: 31. Incredibly, the New York Mets have had a similar success rate during that same period.
And while 8-30g hasn’t caused an increase in crime (at least that we know of), it has done something utterly breathtaking: it’s put real estate developers in the driver’s seat for fixing the state’s intractable affordable housing problem. Seriously? Real estate developers? That’s like putting Keith Richards in charge of drug prevention in Fairfield County.
Take the most recent 8-30g debacle currently taking place in New Canaan. The developer first proposed a 102-unit structure incorporating the required minimum of 30% affordable housing units. Let’s call it Plan 1. Once that proposal was fully approved by the court – over the strenuous objections of the town and after years of litigation (and abundant legal fees) – the developer suddenly changed his mind.
He put forth Plan 2, which would reduce the size of the project from 102 to 62 units and – wait for it – with no affordable housing whatsoever. To be fair, Plan 2 also includes his offer of $3.2 million payable to New Canaan to “support housing solutions on the town’s own terms, the definition of local control.”
Before we roll out the canape to celebrate his generosity, however, understand that given that the cost to build affordable housing in New Canaan is estimated at approximately $620,000 per unit, the cash contribution would only fund five affordable housing units instead of the 30 set forth in Plan 1.
Which brings us to why Plan 2 was likely floated in the first place. The developer will tell you that he did this for the town, that the compromise “meaningfully reduces density, lowers building height, incorporates underground parking, and better reflects the inputs from the community. It is, by any estimate, a better plan for New Canaan.” And it may well be.
But it’s entirely possible that the real reason Plan 2 was introduced was that the developer never really wanted Plan 1 in the first place. In this scenario he simply wanted to get Plan 1 approved by the court and then use that as a cudgel to bludgeon the town and his neighbors into submission in getting Plan 2 approved – the plan that he wanted all along.
Why Plan 2 instead of Plan 1? Because with Plan 2 he would make more money. A lot more money. In fact, because Plan 1 would require him to set aside 30 units (which, multiplied by the $620,000 amount noted above, would cost nearly $19 million), there’s a real question as to whether he could even afford Plan 1 in the first place.
That’s because in addition to the cost of the 30 units, the rental income derived from them would be effectively de minimis because they are, after all, affordable housing. Moreover, 8-30g requires those units to remain affordable for 40 years. That’s a long time making very little money for a developer and his investors.
While calls have been made to escort the developer directly to the guillotine (his recent doxxing of recalcitrant neighbors hasn’t exactly helped), it’s important to understand that the foregoing fact pattern is not a one-off instance; it plays out regularly in the state of Connecticut under the auspices of Section 8-30g.
Ultimately, it’s not the developer’s fault for gaming the system. It’s our fault for having a legislature that gave us a law that could be gamed in the first place.
Nick Williams is a former six-term Selectman of New Canaan.
