Planning & Zoning Commission - public_hearing

At Madison's home campus and via zoom for the purpose of reviewing the draft ordinance, establishing the affordable housing trust fund. That just gives details on where to find them. So that's the purpose of this is to hear from the public. So, this is not a debate about the trust 1. we've already had several board meetings where we've done that. This is just to hear comment from the public. I'm going to ask the chair of the affordable housing committee just to give a 2 minute overview of what the affordable housing ordinance is. And then from that, we'll open it up for public comment. We'll start with in room comments 1st, and then we will go to any online comments after that. All our meetings include, because we ask people to limit their comments to 2 minutes if they can please. We obviously have a lot of people that would like to speak. And we'll do our best to get to as many people as we can.

So that I will turn it over to.

The chair.

Michael 15 growth Avenue, and I'm the chair of the affordable housing committee. I do want to know that only in the chair for a couple of months. So, Mark, thank you so much for the chair. So. Again, the ordinance is online. It really kind of speaks for itself, but I thought I'd give a couple of hype. So. the towns were selected to promote and encourage the development of affordable housing in Madison. The census signal in Madison encourages affordable housing. Funds can be used for a variety of things to promote affordable housing. Examples would be pre-development soils tests, feasibility studies, concept drawings. Some of the things that get done at the beginning of a project where a developer may need some additional encouragement to support their vision for affordable housing. And the sources of funding can come from a variety of sources. Federal government grants. STATE OF CONNECTICUT GRANTS. THEY CAN COME FROM NONPROFIT FOUNDATIONS. THEY CAN COME FROM PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS WHO WANT TO DONATE. AND THEY CAN COME FROM FUNDS ALLOCATED UNDER THE NORMAL ANNUAL BUDGET PROCESS OR THROUGH DEVELOPER FEES AS APPROVED BY THE MAJORITY OF THE ORDERS. I WILL SAY THAT THOSE allocation, federal, state grants, nonprofit foundations, and private individuals often require some sort of matching fund from the TEP. So that was one of the reasons why we left that piece of the ordinance in. This ordinance is based on other towns in Connecticut's affordable housing ordinance. It's been reviewed and approved by the town planner. It's been reviewed and approved by the outside legal counsel for Madison and the affordable housing committee unanimously and strongly encourages the Board of Supervisors to support this ordinance.

Okay. Thank you very much for that. And I think then we'll just go to hearing a comment. Hopefully, if any of you here In the meeting, they've had discussion of this over probably 6 months. We've had a lot of conversation on board. So, I'll try to do this in a worldly way. I know there's a lot of hands raised. I'm probably just going to start kind of. For people on the front row, if there's anybody who would like to make public comment in the front row, please raise your hand. Okay, please state your name and address for the record. It's probably best if you stand up just so they can report it. So, and I'm actually going to ask Lisa, if you could please be a timekeeper just so we make sure that we'll. Yeah, keep everybody around us if you want. No, thank you.

Okay. Thank you for the opportunity. Yeah, I know there's been a lot of debate on on this subject. I'm still not here to debate that. Uh, it's basically 2 things. Uh, I think that the 1st sentence is way way too broad. Where it says town of Madison hereby create a special fund to provide affordable housing to. Uh, in the town of Madison, I think that's way too broad. I think it should be more along the lines that the, um, button is here to, uh, assist the town to comply. with state law that we know how to comply with. And then the second major issue I have is the sources, while they were stated earlier, can reluctantly agree with those with the exception of the comma here, but are to include, but are not limited to. I think that opens up a whole can of worms for what could be required in the future by this board, by other boards, by other elected officials down the road. Way, way too broad. I think if you limit it to the sources that you state here after that sentence, it would probably be okay, but that's way too broad, opens

things down the road okay thank you very much okay there was somebody else in the front row yes please

I want to speak in opposition of the adoption of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Ordinance. This ordinance does not raise taxes today. It does create a permanent non-lapsing account that can later receive municipal appropriations, taxpayer dollars, and building permit fees. Under our charter special appropriations from the unassigned fund balance, under $250,000 threshold could be approved by the Board of Selectmen and Board of Finance alone, no town meeting, no central votes for the residents whose money it is. Early public presentations told us no taxpayer funds were needed. The text of this ordinance tells the opposite. It lists municipal appropriations and permits fees as funding sources. If the intent is only to grant donations, the ordinance should say so if it's not. Once money is in the fund, it can pay for grants, loans, land acquisitions, construction, rehabilitation, staff, contractors, marketing equipment. There's no funding cap. There's no limit on administrative expenses. Loans is undefined and there are no standards for who receives grants or loans. No underwritten rules, no disclosure requirements for recipients and week reporting. The draft contains cross-reference errors and describes a fund as perpetual. And the board is being asked to move from first public hearing to the possible final adopting

adoption in the same night uh this is not ready and uh i would urge the board not to adopt it thank you for your comment um second row we'll start on the side again this is an employee there's anybody here else okay please go ahead um my name is art simons i'm the 65 department five um i'm probably the minority here

who are strongly in favor of affordable housing in Madison. There are several reasons. One is because it's the law, and Madison as well as a lot of other towns are currently not obeying the law. Please correct me if I say something's not accurate, because I certainly don't know as much about it as you guys do. But for the concept of affordable housing, And I'm not saying is it for any personal reason, because I presently and probably never will qualify for affordable housing the way that's what the parameters are today. But I do have concerns about the proposals, how to pay for it. So I'm totally for affordable housing in concept. But the devil is in the details, as it often is, as to how to pay for it. My first question is, how do other towns pay for affordable housing that have affordable housing? Does anybody know how other towns fund it?

So this is not a back and forth, but I will highlight the Affordable Housing Committee has been working on this for several years. So except that, Doug, please just continue with your comment.

OK. Why don't the builders have to pay for all the costs?

I said, this is not a back and forth. Okay. Okay. So I'll be here all night.

Okay.

But I will want to highlight again. All of this has been discussed extensively by the affordable housing committee and then board.

Okay. I've gone to some of the meetings. Okay. The rest of my questions. And so. That's all I have to say.

Yeah, if you want to list your questions, we're welcome to just see. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Okay. So we're just continuing along the 2nd row. Any hands raised? Yes.

I'm John Matthews, architect in town. Probably don't design more housing than you guys can even think about. I've done a lot of affordable housing. My comment about getting affordable housing is fine. You should make those schools available for a developer to make them into affordable housing.

much okay thank you so i didn't want to okay so we'll go down to the the third row back now um any comments no okay go ahead please state your name and address okay um my problems to be brief honest um bob o'connor 72

Laurel Crest Road. I have two points really. One is that it seems to me the frame here that's important is what's the problem? Is the problem that outsiders are putting pressure, outsiders, state or others on our lovely town to do things that we don't want? or is the problem that we don't have adequate housing in this town that school teachers police the workforce so many of the people who do the work in this town cannot afford to live here and that's just plain wrong and we got to do something about it uh there's a tendency to for folks to agree, but then when it comes to actually doing something about it, it never happened. But the plan of conservation and development calls for more of a diversity of housing in the town, which I think really need. So that's my point. The problem is that we don't have the housing. It's not that somehow we've been forced to do something by outsiders who want to mess with our town and bring in all kinds of horrible things. Okay. My second point really quickly is that I'd be wary of slippery slope arguments. You know, we could have insane. This town could elect a whole group of insane selectmen who are going to stand encouraging a marijuana repository next to the high school. So we should have to, you know, let's look at what it is. It says May. It doesn't say Shell. And, you know, if we think these folks, you know, they could do all kinds of nutsy things. They could be all voted out and crazed people would be elected in this town. I think, but that's not what's happening here. Look at what this does. It sets up a mechanism for support to identify what the barriers are. And if they're super expensive, these guys aren't going to vote for them. If they make sense and can do some things which might not cost a lot and get things moving, I think that would certainly help. Let's try it anyway.

Thank you for your comments. Back row there. Yes. Please get your name and address for the record.

Dennis Crowe, 141 Twilight Drive. I'd like to comment on some of the things that happened in the recent July 20th board selecting meeting that talked about this. And I know that Scott said he wanted to be bold and do things for people in need. Well, there are people in need here in town, seniors who are trying to get to some smaller downsized houses or single floor. They can't afford it and they won't qualify. for the affordable housing okay through too many of the ideas that we want to help people who are in need doesn't really include the people in this town whether it's my daughter who wants to move to a bigger house or myself wants to move to a smaller house no we're not going to just trade so um and and al goldberg said he didn't want to tie the hands of the super or future um selectmen The problem is you're opening it up to any kind of violation, despite what the gentleman just said. It's open to doing the violation. And the truth is that there is nothing, if you take those funding sources that are the town funding it, the loans, the permit fees you take all that out you can still do things like go through the soil samples out of the normal budgeting process so you're not tying the hands you're only creating accountability and transparency system items that we've got built into our budgeting process and i say get rid of those sources of funds for this uh for this trust fund i'm good with the trust fund itself but not with town funds being thrown into it with with without um You know, approval by the people, so do just the funds that are the grants and the, and the donations and I think you've got yourself a winner. All right, thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment. Go ahead, but just before you start everybody at the 32nd mark, I'm going to give you this and that'll know that'll be the signal to start winding it down. Okay.

So Zack Allen, 38 Silver Lane. So why is Madison setting up a separate individual slush fund for affordable housing? I understand maybe the need to have somewhere to put funds received from the state or federal governments, but money from the Madison taxpayers should not. As with any other business funded by the taxpayers, it should be part of the town budget and approved by the town. I'm not opposed to direct monetary donations for this purpose. Section 2261A states the sources may fees, municipal appropriations, grants, and loans. Are these building permit fees that I as a Madison taxpayer submit to the town going implementation of affordable housing. Municipal appropriation sounds like a way to allow moving money into the affordable housing fund at any time without going through the taxpayer town budget. My property taxes have increased $200 per year every year since 2022. That's 3% each year, 10% since my family moved here four years ago. I don't make a million dollars per year. Why don't I get an affordable housing break? Yeah.

Thank you for your comment.

Maureen Cimino, 45 Brantwood Drive. I don't have a problem with affordable housing. I don't actually know what affordable means, specifically how much we'll charge for these individuals who can't afford it. I'm concerned, once again, how much open space is going to be sacrificed for these buildings that we don't consider wildlife and the habitat fragmentation. I don't understand if this is to be affordable and if we're putting parking lots up for people who can't afford cars and they need to be closer to downtown. Why don't we convert Academy School into an affordable housing? And that might solve people to be walking into town, walking to get what they need. And if that's people who really can't afford living in this town, instead of putting them up in North Madison on some undeveloped open space, and then they have to figure out how to get somewhere to get their food and gas. And so that's going very well. Thank you.

Hey, thank you for your comment. Just on the sides here, anybody? Back row, we'll start over there. Okay, please say your name and address if you happen.

My name is Joe Mako, 22 Randy Drive. I've lived in Connecticut all my life. I've lived in Madison over 50 years and I built my house here 42 years ago. And I love Madison, but the way the Democrats, and I'm going to say this out loud, they ruined the state of Connecticut and now they're ruining Madison. So I'm making a political point because it is a political point. It seems to be that everyone in the Democrat party supports trashing our state, trashing our town.

My first comment is, do we have the resources to bring in affordable housing? Mainly the police department. The schools, I guess, are overcrowded already. The fire department, paramedics. We don't have that infrastructure set up yet. I think we need to do that first. Could you give me a study on the existing affordable housing we have right now on any type of an impact they have had on our police department and our paramedics? I understand that paramedics and police department are consistently responding to one of the affordable housing projects that has been done a few years ago. And I don't think anybody really knows about that. But things like that we need to be careful about. And affordable housing is fine. I think it should be for the town residents first to get an option to go into affordable housing before we send that out to the rest of the state. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Other comments? Yes.

John Rasmus for Governor's Way. I think it's clear by the turnout and from what I've heard from the people in town, they might not necessarily be against affordable housing. I don't think in general terms they are, but they are against our taxpayer dollars, whether it be through direct appropriation, whether it be through building fees, whether it be through loans, it's very clear that people do not want that. And I asked the Board of Selectmen for that reason, And that reason alone to vote no on this ordinance as written. It's not written properly. It's too broad as was mentioned. And I think if it's narrowed down to grants and donations, I think there would be different feelings on that. So I asked the Board of Selectmen, listen to the people. They are being very clear of what they want and what they don't want. Thank you.

Laura Noble, Georgetown Circle. I'm asking the Board of Selectmen to reject this ordinance as written for three reasons. First, there's lack of transparency here on taxpayers. We've been emphasizing at your meetings that this trust is being established in order to accept grants. But then why is the ordinance drafted to allow the trust to be funded with taxpayer dollars, building-related fees, and even loans, as other people tonight have raised? 1st, like 1 line stated at a July 20 meeting, the only intention for having any type of taxpayer funding going into this. Was it the town wanted to put a little bit of money there to help pay for some planning documents or site review documents. She perfect plan to the purpose of this fund is not a bunch of money into it to subsidize housing. But these claims just don't square with the text of Madison's affordable housing plan, which calls for, and this is a quote, making regular investment of municipal funds into the housing trust fund. The plan specifically mentions the inclusionary zoning development fees, annual municipal budgets, or even periodic capital improvement bonds as potential funding sources. It states, quote, a housing trust fund can contribute towards construction and rehabilitation for repair of affordable housing. That sounds a lot like taxpayer dollars being used to subsidize housing. If you want taxpayer dollars for this initiative, you should be asking for those dollars openly. If you plan to create new fees or divert existing ones to this trust, you should be telling us that now. Don't call something a grant strategy today and create a backdoor mechanism to spend more taxpayer dollars tomorrow. second the issue of affordability in Madison is extremely important but affordability for whom some on this board seem to have lost sight of that fundamental question in the survey included in its report the affordable housing committee disclosed the majority of Madison residents were concerned with the overall cost of housing in Madison creating another potential financial obligation for taxpayers does not make Madison more affordable. It's a contradiction, not a solution. You should be thinking about how to make Madison less expensive to build in and less expensive to live in for everyone from young professionals to seniors. Thank you very much.

So, I know we also have people online, so let's go online and Peter said, okay, I'm just going. Trying to have some order to this rather than random. So I thought, you know, I know then I was going to come back as other people are raising their gas back up, but okay. So we'll do a few more people in the room that will go online. That will come back for people who have to show up with that. But we saw it.

Okay. So. I haven't grown up here. i'll tell you that gladys waltz made 152 flintlock road madison connecticut 06443 i'm here because i feel strongly that the reason my husband and i chose madison was that it was a new england community a community which included historic farming it included historical venues Young families, older families, it was a mix. It was not Greenwich. I've lived in Chappaqua, Bronxville, Rye, New York, okay? I get all those places. I'm concerned very much about the way money is allocated in this community. I am not an expert in this, but I did run a corporate foundation. So I don't know why this is coming to a vote tonight. I would like to understand better because I do believe that firefighters, the police, the teachers, people who serve this community should be able to live here. I really do. Veterans, older people who have raised kids, people who are having disabilities. May I point out that this room is entirely too small for this venue. People who are standing there with chains, it's really not very fair. I almost feel like you don't care about our opinion and you know that I live on a road where the city took on preparing part of the road supposed to take 6 months X amount of dollars this many dollars. over a year. My point is, how come you're not going back to basics? For these people who might live here, don't we want them to have services? I look around this town and I don't get it. My kids are Eagle Scouts. That Eagle Scout project at the surf club is standing. The whole place is falling, not because it's old, but because nobody maintains it. the same with so many other places. The women's club in this town went and raised money and we did the kiosk, not the town. Let's take care of our own bidding. Let's provide for our own citizens. Let's do it in a judicious timely manner. Thank you.

So, a few other people in the room, and then we'll go to what I was going on to the back and then we'll go a few up here. So please speak and address the record.

Should be false Jonathan's landing. Just wanted to say a couple of things as we're. Excuse me as we're looking at this, we've got. A charity essentially, it's not tax deductible. So, if you guys want to donate 5,000 dollars. To the trust fund, you can't write the taxes off. So, that's 1 thing that, you know, kind of doesn't get discussed. You know, paying attention to the meetings that. This is like, they're also with the facilities department and consultants pick panel land that they can build housing. We could use the trust fund money to actually put together packages for builders to come do that. So, again, that we need to go through, you know, the town to vote to give away our land. So that would be up to the town, but this is to help incentivize that type of thing. And we're not really looking at, like what Andy said, we're not looking forward. We are one year into a new school, we've already had to move preschool to another location, and we have to build another playground for the preschool. So all of those things, you know, it seems like we put them, you know, jump on one shiny object and everything else doesn't get the attention. Um, you know, we need to really look at all of this. We've got. You know, we all look to because we had 2 acres zoning. It was nice part of town. You know, we're 1520 minutes away from New Haven. All of the things that everybody needs. We come home to somewhere that's quiet. If there's a change that everybody wants to do and become more of. cultural center and have tourism and lots of things coming in. Um, then let's go through this, but as long as everybody's on the same page, you're building apartments that can be used for Airbnb, you know, so you could build 10 apartments, two of them are affordable housing. Then you have eight regular ones. So we're not really getting too off of the list. And then we're, uh, you know, you can just start ranking those out. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, I have a lot in 671 Summerhill Road.

So I know you're not going to answer my questions and I don't even know if this is even anything that we can even vote on. I'm sure it's not. But the money being spent is so ridiculous. Stop taking my tax. Stop raising my taxes. I'm going to be a grandmother in six months and I would love my hard working daughter and son in law to move to Madison. They can't even afford it. They can't afford it. But now you're telling me that I have to put more tax money into a fund so that we can have more affordable housing. I thought affordable housing, I thought it was going to be the apartments downtown by the cleaners. that's what i thought years ago that's what it was told by someone said oh that's gonna be a form of housing nothing's affordable i don't nothing in this town so why are we taking our money though let it be a donation let it be something else but don't take our money if we don't vote for it it's not fair it just isn't it's just i i can't i went to the beach last week and i'm sick i'm just sitting by the sound i can't afford to look for myself

Okay, so, um, 2 more in the room, and then we're going to go to, uh, we're going to go to 1, 1, just because I know you had your head up.

We're also going to look back. Give me a chance.

Yeah, you can say a lot of people.

Good evening. My name is Paul Harris, 79 Genesee Lane. We moved here from the Midwest back about 35 years ago. We love Madison. I pay my real estate taxes. I pay my car taxes. I pay my dog tax. I pay my federal government tax. And when we talk about grants, that's still our money as well, as far as I know. I don't think the government has its own separate income. So we're really getting taxed to death. And I don't totally understand everything about affordable housing. I would love to move to Greenwich, but guess what? I can't afford it. So I moved to Madison. I mean, I couldn't move to Clinton, wherever I chose an area that I could afford to live in. But I am opposed to taking our hard earned income that we pay in taxes and giving it to the town so that they can do at their discretion, as I understand it. And roll money into this affordable housing program. So I'm, I'm against it.

Online and I'll try to get some of the more in person. Yes.

I get your time with, you know, over in Fairfield. Moved here 6 years ago, the comments about. You can pay stuff that. Okay. But this seems to be a misunderstanding. They're not saying you're going to be taxable. And for your sake, I did a quick calculation. It'd be 14 dollars. So I'll take care of that for you. Okay, it's a vehicle. Start the process you all have in place. I'm all the solutions. Trash in Connecticut. I have two things for you. Iran war and terrorists. If you don't like Connecticut, move. I'm saying 14 dollars. That's what it would be. I get the math right here.

This is the place to have this kind of debate right now. You can have the political debate. We're talking about. Well, housing commission, which will find cars that came before the selectmen, we need some modifications and then we send it to the public hearing. And that's what the purpose of this is, is to hear what you think. Okay, and that's what you're doing. You're sharing your opinions with us and then we'll have a discussion at tonight's meeting whether or not we want to. Uh, absolutely as is, or if you want to make changes. So, I appreciate you putting out because to be honest, a lot of times people don't come out to the public. So, this is good that we're actually getting feedback from people and this has been a process that has been spoke talked about. the woman earlier talked about this affordable housing plan that was endorsed by this board and voted on unanimously by this board so she's accurate in talking to this was part of a plan that the board voted for many years ago another committee had written so this isn't some new thing we're springing on people this has gone through the affordable housing committee for probably like 18 months and our board has had multiple meetings but i'm respecting that the fact that you're just learning about it So please don't be angry at us. We spent a lot of time on this. This is a thoughtful thing and there's reasoning behind this. We'll hear your thoughts. We'll talk about it more tonight and make a decision if we want to move forward or if we want to amend it to accommodate some of the comments we're here tonight. That's the purpose of the public hearing. So just please be, we're all friends and neighbors at the end of the day, right? We really are. We're all residents here and we all love Madison. So let's just try to keep that tone as we make our comments. And moving forward, we want to hear helpful things, things that people are pointing out, and we'll digest it and decide how we move forward. So with that, I would like to go online to be respectful, because we've created the hybrid. And then we'll try to get some more people in the room once we're done with that. OK, so I'll go to the first. We have a hand raised online. So Maddie, if you could please. Not Gordon?

Hi, everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you to the Board of Selectmen for hosting this public hearing. I just want to say I agree with the statements of John Rasmus, Dennis Crowe, and the gentleman in the front row from the Midwest. This proposal is a good vehicle to collect state and federal grants as well as private donations, but it is not responsible to open the door without limits to fund with taxpayer dollars. also keep in mind that the building permits that are included as a funding source in this proposal at the end of fiscal year 25 the actual amount that the town of madison brought in is over 875 000 in the building permit fees the town does depend on those funds if they are used elsewhere without limit we be we need to find funding elsewhere i do ask that you vote this down tonight and revisit the language of this proposal to amend thank you

Thank you. Karen.

Hi, Terry VanMendelder, Bartlett Drive. I do support the concept of more affordable housing. Again, whatever that definition is, none of us really have that definition in front of us, but to allow other people to come into town. However, this fund, as it is stated, is a general fund and it's not accountable or transparent because the allocations are not up for a public vote, whereas the town budget line by line is visible to the public and up for a vote every may somebody mentioned that the fund is required by the state i don't believe it is i believe affordable and middle housing is required by the state but the fund is not as it is written in this ordinance And then, as some others have already said, and I couldn't say it any better than one individual in the audience right now actually on the board is we collect $800,000 annually in permit fees. If we take those permit fees, which right now support town departments, public safety and public works, then you're going to end up requiring those funds, which is going to be an increase in taxes, no doubt. It's just there's no other way around it. And so when you're calling this, it won't be an increase in taxes. In essence, it will because you're diverting funds away from supporting those services we presently pay for in a portion of those permit fees. So I will quote a member of the board. I propose essential fiscal guardrails, eliminating taxpayer funding sources, capping administrative overhead to prevent shadow operating budgets and require town council approved loan agreements with clawback provisions. If these are absent from this document.

That's time.

Okay. Thank you. It's essentially an added tax to the taxpayers. Okay, thank you.

Jessica Joseph.

Okay, Jessica, go ahead. Jessica Joseph.

you need to unmute sorry about that thank you Jessica Joseph 129 Greenhill um so I just wanted to thank the board of select for having these public hearings um I think it just pays tribute to the transparency that our town has I encourage people that might not know what certain things are to get involved. Regarding the document, I think I'm in favor for affordable housing. I think our teachers, our police officers should be able to live in the town that they serve, and they're not always able to do that. I think the dedicated non-lapsing capital that's mentioned in the proposal and it not lapsing at the end of the year and carrying it forward makes a lot of sense. The other portion, the other piece that I wanted to just point out that I also think made a, made a lot of sense was the creation of the formal mechanism to the capital revenue from non-tax sources, such as the zoning fees and state and federal grants. So those are the two I just wanted to call attention to that I thought are very strong. Thank you.

It looks like you're good online again, so. I would take some more in the room. Please raise your hand and state your name and address.

I'll just want to say 2 things actually. So, so the way that this is written right now, my, my perception of it is, and I know they can't answer questions. Is that every year the board is allowed to put 299,000. I started 249,999 dollars in our money of our undesignated fund to fund this trust. That's the way it's written in addition to the building. Second thing is, there's nothing written in this ordinance that says there will be preference given to people work in town. There could be something in there. There's ways you can write that in there, but it's not in there. So when people are saying, I want firemen and teachers and everybody to live here, that is not what's going to happen. What's going to happen, it's going to go into a general application process for anyone in the state who wants it. You don't have that language in there, so it can't be preferential treatment for people who work here. So there's several things wrong with the wording in here. It's not just about The taxes, I think.

Well, Patricia, so 64 war for so many people have been very articulate in voicing their concerns about this bill Bruce with his open letter, Greg, John Rasmus, Matt Gordon and the very articulate young lady with the glasses in the corner there. um and i agree with them wholeheartedly i feel it's too broad there's not transparency for the voters um and um it is a backdoor into accessing taxpayer funds so with urgent to vote on it now tonight after this without any of you know further consideration when you can see that there's a great deal of opposition to it um i feel would not be appropriate so thank you

any other people that would like to speak who have not spoken who have not spoken yes well let me uh remember the public go first before staff remember hi we're not spoken so ralph singleton 19 field recruit

I've been in town here for four years. My wife and I moved here from Central California. I say that because the business I'm in is the entertainment business. I've been in the film business for over 50 years, both in New York and California. There's a reason. My business has 160,000 technicians in Southern California. Less than half of them are working right now. Why? I'm going to give you some states, Georgia, Then Louisiana, then New Jersey, then New York. When these states all done, New Mexico, they put in incentives. And what happens? You want a contractor or developer to come to your place in order to do something, to build something, you have to offer them something. And their situation, you're having a fund. you can use some of this money which is all going to be accountable and clear this operation watching these people the last four years i've never seen them work any other way the reality is this everyone here has an issue about property taxes god knows i've heard it the last four years Your population went down from the 17,000. Now it's stabilized. You have some of the finest schools in the state, if not the country. The situation really is this. You want to see your taxes go up in private taxes. The situation is they will. It won't be their fault. Okay, one last thing. Having an incentive, part of that fund, to pay for things like... soil tests and what have you will encourage people to come here and they have to have the ability to do that i don't want my taxes to go up but the situation is if you don't build your population you they will and i think that's the one watching i find it very sad i hate to see that thank you thank you for your comments

um sure aaron manix for the record i'm a town planner and also a resident of greenville road i am not here to speak on policy decisions of clearly the board of selectmen which

My role was to assist the affordable housing committee in finding a solution that they thought was 1 piece of the puzzle for housing. Housing has been a conversation across many agencies in town. And so this is not a.

a magic bullet, I guess, to fix everything.

What I did want to just provide were some facts into the record about affordable housing to let folks know that the Affordable Housing Committee does make an effort to put educational information on their website regarding definitions of affordable housing, what is considered affordable housing in Connecticut. Currently, our 2026 numbers from the state Affordable housing, you would qualify for affordable or the area median income is if you is 123,000 dollars, 123,000 dollars roughly for a family of 4. so if a family made 80% of that, they would qualify for deed restricted affordable housing under the state's definition. Um, in 2025, the affordable housing committee did research through the town's human resources department as well as the board of education's human resources department and compiled salaries of positions within town. all of which are highlighted here that would qualify whether individual making the salaries or family rates. So there is a real relevance here for folks who live, serve our community, are connected. And so the other item I just wanted to note is that This is to note that permit fees are approved by ordinance by this board. Any changes? And in my opinion, when you speak to building permit fees or zoning permit fees, those allocations would come before the Board of Selectmen as part of the fee schedule. The same thing with an inclusionary zoning concept. That's a concept that the Planning and Zoning Commission has full authority to enact under their regulations. And if so, require developers who are not providing affordable housing to pay in lieu of. And that in lieu of money needs to go somewhere designated. So there may be language to be finessed, but there may be a need for a tool such as this within the town, similar to open space funds when folks subdivide and don't provide physical open space requirements in a subdivision. So I just wanted to enter this information into the record. Statistics and data from town residents and to just note that there are regulatory processes for budget approvals and fee schedule. Um, I, I don't think and this is just my understanding, having worked with the affordable housing committee that it was never their intention to take. The entire building permit fees and allocate them to this fund. Um, it is done in other towns. Um, some towns that have quite a large amount of development, a percentage is allocated into a fund and that was the intent of that. Maybe the, the details, as some of you had said, are in the.

the finessing the language this is not an uncommon thing for other communities to have but that i just wanted to clarify that oh yeah i know i don't want to take out the comments so i think we're going to allow for some additional public comment for somebody is anybody in here who has not spoken yet um yeah okay hi i'm joel barnston 35 partners lane um

affordable housing generally. So I understand there's requirements that we're trying to work through as a community that are state level to encourage more capital A affordable housing. I think beyond that purview, we should keep it as narrow and focused as it needs to be to conform to the law. Beyond that, you look at what housing stock has, the development of housing stock over the last several decades. Houses get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger by decade. That's why housing becomes less and less affordable. to have more accessible development opportunities for houses that are smaller. That will open up a lot for people to come into the community who want to be home buyers, who want to contribute long-term to the community, both for retirees as well as new families.

Thank you. Thank you. OK. Anybody else then? I think we had one hand on line, and then we'll go to second comments after that. So we'll ramp it up. There was one hand raised on line. Okay, so he's the 2nd, so let's do the 2nd in the room then. So, no new comments. We'll try to get everybody who would like to keep on schedule tonight if possible. So keep your comments brief. So, we'll go back to I know there was somebody here that kept wanting that 2nd comment. I'm trying to. So, all right, well, we'll start here. We'll work our way that way.

John Matthews 1, 1. observation here you're creating a new law you have five people there are 16 000 residents you should put this on a pound ballot and everybody vote for them any other second comments um yes mine's i don't not clear so whether or not i'm allowed that's

Based on what Aaron, the question is on the figures that Aaron gave, I assume those figures for the average income for family four in Madison came from the state of Connecticut. Is that in fact the average income for family four or is that the median income for family four?

The definition is median.

Okay. My right is to say it's our standard area, not just Madison.

It's our Council of Governments. Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay. So back there.

I just want to interject something of common sense. We've never had a problem with housing in this state. IT WASN'T UNTIL THE GOVERNOR, NOT TO BE POPULAR WITH THE DEMOCRATS, UNTIL HE BROUGHT HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF ILLEGALS IN OUR STATE. AND IT TOOK UP ALL THE AVAILABLE HOUSING. THAT'S THE TRUTH. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BELIEVE IT. AND IT ALSO RAISED THE PRICE.

I think the operative word here is affordable. Affordable for residents and affordable for other people to live here. I'm aware of teachers that don't live in this town. They live elsewhere and they make a good salary here and then they have an affordable life. so there i think there are a lot of ways to look at the situation so that it is affordable for a lot of different people you know there are older buildings that older homes that have been here and then all of a sudden they get developed and everything gets decimated there there's a way to recycle and renew and i don't know why we don't go that route but if if development is expensive just use the properties and things that we have here to they're already in need of development Like the jeffrey school that has parking or other places. So that's my call. Okay.

Yes, and I'll break in the rules. Chef down 15 mark on place. So, basically, I don't really see the need for a separate fund. I don't know why that fund can't be on those regular business. Because we're restricting it to is being used for housing. Once the money goes in there, that's basically what it's going to be used for. And if I'm in charge of that, I'm. i'm going to go look and try and get as much money into that fund as possible so we need soil samples we need properties study like common property study for use which we do already i'm not sure why setting up this separate fund why doesn't affordable housing come to the town the budget proposal and handle that through regular business yeah thank you um any other new comments and then we'll go okay go ahead

Two faults, Jonathan's landing again. Just a couple of quick things. One of the things I recommended to the Board of Selectmen and also affordable housing was a mansion tax, which other areas do, where if a house over a certain value, you know, one million, one and a half million is sold in town, there's a tax affixed to that for anything above that value that is designated for affordable housing. That's been seen to be the emphasis of it. As a community, we're talking about police and fire, teachers. We spend a lot of nice things in this town. Maybe if we didn't do that and actually paid our people that are taking care of our town, educating the kids, pay them more so that they can actually live in town. rather than trying to create an affordable house that they may or may not get, may or may not qualify for. You know, I think if they're not making that money, Erin didn't say, like, how many there are that would qualify, but, you know, it's something to consider. You know, like, do we need $3.5 million for her field at the middle school? You know, maybe that could be better used for salaries. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I guess I'm just going to close this out. We have 2 more hands raised online. These are 1 more call for 1st time. People have not had an opportunity to speak, so we'll go to the 2 hands raised online and then we'll photograph the public hearing. Okay, so with that, I guess there's 2 more hands. Backboard.

Yes, thank you so much. I just want to respond to Erin Mannix. First of all, Erin Mannix is fabulous for our town, a huge asset, all the work she does. But in the terms of her comments about the building permits, I think what a lot of us want to see is in this language, the caps on this. We want to see that not everything is going to be used. We want to see the language as it is right now. It's immature. It needs to actually put some parameters on that. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Terry.

Hi, Terry, the end older Bartlett drive again again. I just wanted to indicate that this particular fund is not required by the state. Also, the gentleman who wore the Block Islander is wearing the Block Island sweatshirt. I don't know his position in connection to this fund in ordinance, but maybe that would be important to hear. And that particular individual said that we could then Developers could then build smaller houses. And if we're talking higher density housing into a particular acreage, you are increasing the population of Madison. What that does is requires the increase of every type of service that we provide with our taxes, and it will not fly on the current budget. It means a higher budget if we have a higher population, just to keep that in mind. Thank you.

Okay. We have one new hand raised of somebody who's not spoken and that'll be the last speaker on board. Okay. Go ahead.

That'll close us out. Good evening, my name is Alex Provence. I respect the commitment of those who have advocated for this fund, but tonight's comments show serious public concern. Before creating a permanent municipal fund, please consider the seniors and long-term residents already struggling with rising taxes and the cost of remaining in Madison. If private support is strong, begin with grants, voluntary donations, or an end fees or municipal borrowing. Please do not treat those who disagree as less caring or less virtuous. Madison is a community of good people living under different circumstances. For those reasons, I ask you not to adopt this ordinance tonight. Thank you.

And we're going to just like, that's a nice public hearing. Thank you everybody for sharing your views. We really appreciate all the feedback, which is going to see. People pairing and coming forward and, you know, I encourage you to stay in touch. So thank you.

Thank you.

And we'll start our meeting in 5 minutes. Thank you.