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Housing Plan Profile: Stamford, CT

Plan title: An Affordable Housing Strategy for Stamford, CT [PDF], available on the website of the Office of Public Safety, Health and Welfare.

Issued: September 2001

Overview: This report was written by an Affordable Housing Task Force, established by Mayor Malloy following an affordable housing conference sponsored by the non-profit Housing Development Fund in summer of 2000. Prepared in conjunction with the City's Master Plan, this report outlines the "scope and content" of a thorough affordable housing plan, and offers a broad array of strategies available to the City. While numeric goals are offered, the report serves primarily as a starting point, presenting a menu of choices from which the City can choose and refine specific actions.

Photo courtesy of McCormack Baron Salazar

Selected Strategies:

Inventory and acquire underutilized, obsolete, brownfield, or vacant sites for development of mixed-income housing, allowing zoning revisions and re-codification when needed.
Expand sites for affordable housing using adaptive reuse of non-residential buildings, mixed-use development and/or PUD-type development.
Use tax incentives, including tax increment financing, tax abatement, and/or tax deferral to encourage development of affordable housing.
Allow deferred payment of property tax increases on single family homes in gentrifying areas until sale, with possibility of forgiveness of home is sold to a low- or moderate-income buyer.
Establish a housing trust fund capitalized through inclusionary zoning buyouts or linkage fees, possibly for use as a pre-development and/or site acquisition loan pool, repayable over a long period.
Establish an inclusionary zoning ordinance with clear guidelines (10-12 percent for rental, with half affordable at 50 percent AMI and half at 25 percent AMI; slightly higher income limits for owner properties) and incentives (including tax increment financing, tax abatement and deferrals, density bonus, and capital subsidy), covering the areas where all or most future residential development is anticipated to occur.
Preserve the long-term affordability of state- and federally-subsidized units by ensuring 1 to 1 replacement of aging public housing units at comparable levels of affordability, and preparing an inventory and assessment of privately-owned projects with expiring affordability restrictions.
Preserve privately-owned affordable rental units through encouraging acquisition of poorly managed or absentee-owned buildings by non-profit entities, and/or providing incentives, such as deferral of property taxes, low-interest loans, or refinancing of existing debt on favorable terms, to owners of well-managed buildings, in exchange for a continued commitment to affordability.
Preserve dilapidated owner-occupied buildings through acquisition by non-profits able to rehab the building, allowing the previous owner to remain in the rehabbed unit as a tenant.
Condominium purchase program -- provide down-payment assistance and soft second mortgages for families to purchase condominiums, with payment forgiven, deferred until resale of property, or rolled over to the next lower-income home buyer, and encourage employers to adopt similar programs.
Create an information clearinghouse for those seeking housing opportunities or interested in learning about the City's housing needs and action being taken to address those needs.

Financing Sources Identified:

Inclusionary zoning buyout and linkage funds
City of Stamford appropriations
Connecticut Housing Finance Agency resources
Federal programs (HOME, Community Development Block Grants, Section 8, HOPE VI)
Low Income Housing Tax Credits, including 4 percent credits combined with tax-exempt bonds
Private institution and corporate support
Housing Development Fund resources
Home Loan Bank Affordable Housing Program funds
EPA Brownfields revolving loan fund

Background:

Written by the Stamford Affordable Housing Task Force, with Alan Mallach and Abeles Phillips Preiss and Shapiro, the firm engaged in preparing the City's Master Plan.

The lead party is the City of Stamford, with efforts led by the Director of Public Safety, Health and Welfare. Other public partners include the Stamford Housing Authority, Stamford Zoning and Planning Boards, Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, Citizens Advisory Committee, and non-profit Housing Development Fund.

A timeline is not identified, and production goals are identified on a preliminary basis, with firmer goal-setting dependent on the outcomes of the City's master planning process. The target population includes households earning 50 to 80 percent of area median income (homeownership); households earning 35 to 80 percent of area median income (condo purchase); and households earning less than 50 percent of area median income (rental).