Branford Is Dying a Death by a Thousand Cuts

In recent weeks, Branford got what looked like good news. The proposed 397-unit apartment complex on Commercial Parkway, off Exit 53, is not moving forward. People pushed back, and the plan came off the table. That is real, and I am glad about it.

Now let me ruin it for you.

Private equity does not think in months, nor do the developers, nor do the lawyers representing the developers and the landowners. It thinks in decades. Three steps forward, two steps back. Come in bigger than you need, absorb the anger, learn where the town is soft, then pull back and let everyone celebrate. It looks like the public won. What it is, is research, and they just got ours for free.

Nobody asks the question that matters during a celebration. What was in it for you?

They told us what comes next. In writing. Read the statement the property owners put out. Not the news headline. The statement. One sentence should stop this town cold: “We believed this proposal offered a better outcome than a development that could proceed under Connecticut’s affordable housing laws and bypass local zoning.”

They are telling us what the other option is. And they are right.

Even if that family never files again, they can sell, and whoever buys it inherits the same law. They did not lose. They took notes.

The law everyone has heard of and nobody seems to know. Section 8-30g, on the books since 1989. If less than ten percent of a town’s housing counts as affordable under the state’s formula, a developer who sets aside affordable units gets special consideration under the law. If our Planning and Zoning Commission says no, the developer takes it to court, and in that courtroom everything is backwards

The developer does not have to prove the town was wrong. The town has to prove it was right.

Too dense is not a good enough reason. Too much traffic is not a good enough reason. And here is the big one: It violates Branford’s zoning is not a good enough reason. Our zoning rules are not a shield, even in some cases, if it comes to the environment. They are simply suggestions.

And the count is rigged. Branford sits at 3.29 percent. Not ten. Three. We have been stuck near that number for over a decade.

How, in a town with this much modest housing? Because the state does not count housing that is affordable. It counts housing with the right paperwork. A mobile home park counts only if the residents own the park or the homes carry a recorded deed restriction. The ordinary park, where a landlord owns the land and people rent the lot, is often the most affordable housing in town. It counts as zero. That number is what holds the courthouse door open.

So who picks up the bill? Start with what the word affordable actually means. Under 8-30g, only thirty percent of the units have to be price restricted at all. The other seventy percent rent for whatever the market will bear. In a 400-unit building that is roughly 280 apartments at full market rate. And affordable in the statute means up to eighty percent of area median income, which around here is not poor.

And a Connecticut town has no other way to raise money. No town sales tax. No town income tax. There is the grand list, and there is the mill rate, and that is the whole toolbox. So, when a project does not cover what it costs to serve, there is exactly one place the difference comes from.

Your tax bill.

That is not a scare tactic. That is simple math. And it is why somebody has to read the actual application before it is approved, or a bill that is voted on, for that matter. A local commission can do that. A number handed down from Hartford cannot.

This did not start with Exit 53 One session at a time, each cut small enough that nobody notices.

2021. House Bill 6107 forced towns to prove their zoning allows varied housing and made accessory apartments allowed as-of-right. Passed 84 to 59, straight down party lines.

May 2025. House Bill 5002. Passed 84 to 67. Republicans voted against it, and Governor Lamont vetoed it in June. But was it vetoed or kicked down the road temporarily?

Now watch the calendar. Connecticut’s municipal elections were November 4, 2025. Eight days later, the legislature returned in special session and passed House Bill 8002. Signed November 26. Call me cynical, but I do not think the Governor is naive. He knew this bill was poison in a year when every town was electing its own officials, so he sent it back, waited out the local elections, and signed it three weeks later.

Not one Republican voted for 8002. The supermajority pushed it through under emergency certification, the procedure that skips committee and skips the public hearing where people like you get to speak. But where was the emergency? And why did Branford’s own Robin Comey vote yes to the bill knowing how it would affect Branford? And she did not stop there. She voted down all three Republican amendments that tried to soften the bill, one after another, before voting it through.

Now Hartford decides how much housing the state needs and hands Branford its share. If we do not participate by June 1, 2028, we lose our protection under 8-30g and the state money for sewers and schools. Two doors, and Hartford built both. And to be clear, we are not losing extra money if we don’t comply. We are losing the money we were supposed to get regardless.

So where has our Representative been? Has Robin Comey proposed a single bill to protect Branford’s zoning? Anything to fix a formula that counts our mobile home parks as zero? Has she stood up in the House or in this town, and explained these votes to the people who elected her?

I have not seen it. Not a bill, not a town hall, not a letter to this paper. If she has and I missed it, I will correct myself publicly and be glad to be wrong. But four terms is a long time to be quiet on the issue reshaping the town you represent.

Voting with your caucus is not the same thing as representing Branford.

What I would actually do. First, there is no magic bill. Any candidate who says he is walking into Hartford to repeal 8-30g is selling you something or just flat-out lying. One representative out of 151 does not undo thirtyfive years of law alone.

Here is what one can do, and I will. Start at home, with Planning and Zoning and the people who live here, and find out what Branford wants, not what a party wants. Then go to Hartford and defend it vigorously, every time. And do not stop at no. Voting no is easy. It is also useless when your side holds 49 seats. I will work with legislators from both parties to write zoning law that is fair, reasonable, and hands the decision back to the towns.

And here is the first thing I would put my name on. Somewhere along the way, affordable housing stopped being about people and became about unit counts, formulas, and who gets the tax credit. I would amend 8-30g, 8002, and whatever comes after them with one principle. The people who built this town get first crack at living in it.

First right of refusal for our seniors. They spent forty years paying taxes here. They should not be the ones squeezed out to make room for somebody’s return on investment.

First right of refusal for our young people whose families are already here. The kids who grew up in Branford should be able to afford to stay in Branford.

First right of refusal for our veterans. If we mean what we say about them one day a year, we can mean it the other three hundred and sixty-four.

Everybody deserves a place they can afford, and Connecticut has the room. But a town ought to be allowed to take care of its own first, and right now that is simply not how the law works.

Affordable housing is not a bad idea. We need it. My daughters’ generation cannot afford the state they grew up in. The problem is not that Hartford wants housing built. It is that Hartford decided towns cannot be trusted to decide how, or for whom.

The developers are not the villains. They are working inside the rules Hartford wrote, voted for, and signed. Bottom line. Which came first? The developers or the elected officials who voted for the law?

So, the question is not whether we like apartments. It is who decides how Branford grows.

It should be the people who live here.

Not developers. Not lawyers. Not Hartford.