INCREASING COMMUTER TRAVEL
IN RELATION TO PLANNING FOR HOUSING
IN THE HOUSATONIC VALLEY REGION

Prepared by Jon Chew of HVCEO for the
Second Annual Forum on Housing
in the Greater Danbury Area
October 22, 2003

1. PROPERTY TAX AND SPRAWL (ANTI-SMART GROWTH)
The municipal property tax system causes much unnecessary commuting. The goal of the system is to avoid single family housing as it has a negative tax impact. But at the same time, to encourage economic growth, which has a positive tax impact. People taking the new jobs often must “go live somewhere else”, thus inducing increases in commuting. This is a major contributing factor to Connecticut’s emerging transportation crisis.

2. LINK TO COSTS OF GROWTH STUDY
Where are the facts that back up the generalizations about tax impact above? The positive and negative costs of economic and residential growth in Connecticut have been recently documented by an adjacent regional planning agency, the Waterbury based Council of Governments of the Central Naugatuck Valley, their research on the web at www.cogcnv.org/fiscalimpactanalysis2000.pdf.

3. 1971 LANDMARK WESTCHESTER COUNTY HOUSING STUDY
This was the report “The Suburban Lock-Out Effect” by the Suburban Action Institute. The report defined the “lock-out effect” as “the exclusion of many middle and low income workers employed in the suburbs from the local housing market.” The report concluded that “rapidly increasing suburban employment, in the face of restraints on the supply of housing.... has the consequence of massive long distance reverse commuting.”

”In addition to the monetary and psychological costs of long distance commuting, there are also substantial public costs in terms of highway mileage and air pollution resulting from massive use of the automobile for long journeys to work. These public costs are borne by society as a whole, and are not imputable to the individuals and organizations which generate the lock-out.

There is thus no automatic market force acting to reduce the effect of the suburban lock-out, except perhaps the commuting tolerance limits of workers.”

Continuing, “The ultimate result of the suburban lock-out may be to push commuting times and distances to the limit which the working public will tolerate. If the area zoned for small lots and multi-family housing is not considerably enlarged, suburban lock-out will continue until increasing commuting times and distances choke off further expansion of the labor supply. Westchester will then be unable to compete for new growth and economic development may shift out of the area.”....

The above is a classic study, the thinking from which has influenced housing planning in Connecticut and other states.

4. 1973 ZONE BREAKING ATTEMPT
IN NEW FAIRFIELD AND SHERMAN
Attracting great media attention at the time, a development of 2,500 multi-family units was proposed for the shore of Candlewood Lake. There was an accompanying threat to overturn local zoning by force thru the courts. This effort did not succeed.

From today’s perspective, this challenge was not helpful to balancing housing with transportation, as the new housing was to be placed far from roadways and employment opportunities.

To jump ahead to a quote from the 1997 HVCEO Regional Plan: “Outlying areas that are not responsible for stimulating the Region’s economic growth should not be obligated to accommodate the population pressure resulting from that growth.” Also, “Semi-rural remote areas are not needed for housing to balance regional economic development objectives.”

5. 1978 CT COMMISSION AND HUMAN
RIGHTS AND OPPORTUNITIES ZONING STUDY
Another major challenge to the area was the 1978 statewide report by CT CHRO looked for what is called “exclusionary zoning.” That term was seen as “describing housing and zoning laws, policies and practices in excess of minimum standards of public health, safety and welfare which result in restricting the housing market, preventing certain types of dwelling units from being built and depressing the availability of housing.”

In our area the purported “most severely restricted” zoning was in Bridgewater, Brookfield, New Fairfield, Newtown, Redding and Sherman. The “middle range of zoning restriction” was supposedly found in Bethel, New Milford and Ridgefield. Only Danbury was categorized as “with a non-restrictive zoning ordinance.”

The study was criticized by HVCEO at the time for 1) avoiding the environmental base data that was reasonably behind many multi-family housing avoidance policies, and having no assessment of the overall balance of jobs and dwellings in each town as a factor in evaluation.

6. MID-SEVENTIES REGIONAL HOUSING COUNCILS
For many years in the seventies and into the eighties, the governor would designate a person to be the Housing Council Chair in each of the 15 planning regions. The 15 would meet in Hartford with state staff on occasion. Municipalities each appointed one representative to the Council.

There was no budget for planning or administrative activities, this provided by volunteers. One accomplishment of the Housatonic RHC was a workshop on accessory apartments, leading to the adoption of such a regulation in Newtown.

7. 1978 ATTACK ON UNION
CARBIDE DEVELOPMENT PLANS
Federal funds were proposed for expanding I-84 to allow for the relocation of the Union Carbide Corporate Headquarters from New York City to Danbury. Use of these funds was opposed by the Suburban Action Institute on the grounds that it discriminated against New York City based lower income employees of Union Carbide because they would be unable to find affordable homes in the Greater Danbury Area. Also, busing from NYC to Danbury on a daily base would not be feasible. Here we see housing and commuting clearly linked.

8. 1978 “EXPECTED TO RESIDE” STATISTICS
A municipality commonly plans for the housing needs of its residents. But the innovative idea here is that a municipality should also plan for the housing needs of some of its non-resident workers. In its planning documents, HVCEO has endorsed this “expected to reside” concept for many years.

The name commonly given to the number that results from such a calculation is the “expected to reside” figure (ETR). The formula was published in the Federal Register of 3/16/1977.

As part of federal HUD grant requirements, by 1978 the City of Danbury had incorporated into its housing plan provision for lower income households whose working head is employed in Danbury but does not live in the City. The assumption behind this policy was that a portion of the lower income workers commuting into the City each day would move into the City in order to reduce their travel time if housing were available. As of 1978 346 non-resident families have been placed in this category.

Newtown also made a similar calculation for its housing plan, and 125 working non-resident heads of households were seen as in need of housing within the community.

A March 1978 report by the Tri-State Regional Planning Commission had stated that “lower income, nonresident jobholders that could be “expected to reside” closer to their workplaces amount to 131,000 in the New York Metropolitan Region with just under half located in Bergen, Nassau and Westchester counties.

9. 1981 HVCEO REGIONAL PLAN
HVCEO is required by state statute to prepare such an advisory plan. Fighting the growing mismatch between jobs and dwellings was seen as “an issue of critical importance to other elements of the plan such as energy conservation, air quality, transportation, and economic development, the maintenance of an overall balance between jobs and dwellings as the Region grows is a desirable objective. .... “If local growth policies are to withstand legal challenges they are advised to incorporate linkages between increases in jobs and dwellings.”

Also, that if housing costs “within the housatonic Valley Region continue to rise, then it is likely that areas to the east along I-84 and to the north accessible from Route 7 will take on an even greater role as bedroom suburbs to this Region.” This is a clear linkage of transportation and housing.

10. 1988 STATEWIDE HOUSING NEEDS DATA BASE
In HVCEO Bulletin #54, dated February of 1988, the needs for affordable housing in each of the ten municipalities was quantified. The other fourteen regional planning organizations in Connecticut completed similar studies at the same time, thus for the first time a statewide data base of housing need was created. A statistical formula was utilized, but without a commuter or “expected to reside” component.

Total units needed to relieve vacancy deficiency and inadequate conditions as of 1988 were found to be: Bethel 536, Bridgewater 39, Brookfield 283, Danbury 4,119, New Fairfield 229, New Milford 1,041, Newtown 474, Redding 93, Ridgefield 634, Sherman 38, Region 7,486.

But outside of the formula approach, the report allowed for some regional issues to be included. For our area, this involved some commuter related housing trends:

“Good planning calls for regions and municipalities to promote an internal balance between land uses containing job sites and those containing residences. Any imbalance in favor of jobs makes the housing market overly restrictive.”

Also, that “HVCEO’s statistical study of the balance between jobs and dwellings inherent in the area’s local zoning shows that many area municipalities are moving rapidly towards a mismatch. There is a public interest in encouraging a balance in the Region between economic and residential growth, and these figures (1978, now quite dated, but results would likely be similar today) show that we are moving away from such a balance.”

11. 1990 JOURNEY TO WORK CENSUS STATISTICS
Of the labor force in the entire Region, in 1970 3.0% was drawn in daily from the adjacent Greater Waterbury Area, where housing prices are lower. By 1980 this was 5.2%, and in 1990 this same figure had risen to 7.4%

For many years, the number and percentage of residents commuting out of the Housatonic Region every day to the South Western Region (Norwalk, Stamford, etc.) has been increasing. High housing costs to the south play a dominant role in the trend. Now we see more and more workers coming in from the Waterbury Area to fill jobs here, again likely related to relative housing costs.

12. 1990'S MUNICIPAL HOUSING PARTNERSHIPS
Almost every municipality had a local housing partnership group in the nineties. The carrot from the state level for their creation was additional road improvement funds. This inducement was removed after a few years and most partnerships were then disbanded.

13. 2001 HVCEO POLICY AGAINST
ROUTE 7 EXPRESSWAY CONSTRUCTION
The 2001 Regional Transportation Plan added some explanatory text on the reasons the Housatonic Council no longer supported Route 7 Expressway construction between Danbury and Norwalk. This referred to the many controversial impacts suggested from such construction. These were clarified by this (draft) 2004 Plan to include:

“Inducing sprawl development along the corridor and to the north, which violates the "Smart Growth" planning concepts in the 1997 HVCEO Regional Plan.” Also, “The Housatonic Valley Region being forced to accept housing development pressure not wanted in the South Western Planning Region, a problem that is more and more in evidence by our increasingly one sided commuting patterns (much AM southbound, little AM northbound).”

14. 2000 COMMUTER TRAVEL STATISTICS
Regionwide, the trend of more commuters to Stamford is very interesting from a housing point of view. There is a long term trend for the percentage of daily commuters to Stamford to increase at a rate greater than municipal growth rates.

Due to the high cost of housing in the Stamford area, the employment base of that City is increasingly choosing the Housatonic Valley as a location for residence. This is most noticeable in this area’s middle income communities, less so in its southern most upper income communities.

For example, while 1990-2000 population in expensive Ridgefield grew 13%, Stamford commuters only grew by 6% in 2000, to 1246, a significant number of commuters to Stamford in any case. Similarly. for Redding, another high cost town, the population growth rate of 4% was not quite matched by the increase of commuters to Stamford 1990-2000 of 3%, to 389.

But north of this area, where housing costs are lower, many Stamford workers have sought housing, way out of proportion to population growth rates in these towns:

Newtown grew 21% while commuters to Stamford grew 31% (to 449).
Bethel grew 3% while commuters to Stamford increased 15% (to 484).
Danbury grew 14% while commuters to Stamford increased 42% (to 1274).

Then New Fairfield grew 8% while commuters to Stamford increased 52% (to 270). Brookfield grew 11% while commuters to Stamford increased 24% (to 183). Then New Milford grew 15% while commuters to Stamford increased 118% (to 337).

15. WHY NOT JUST PROVIDE TRANSPORTATION?
Affordable housing is so difficult to provide! Why not just fund the transportation mechanisms to bring the masses of people the great distances needed? Because the daily movement of these people wastes energy and contributes to air pollution. It also wastes a great deal of these people’s time. A growing “sense of community”, by having people live and work in the same location, is held back. And of course, the ultimate “host residential community” for the commuting workers is unfairly impacted.

16. ADVICE FROM THE HVCEO
According to the 1997 regional plan: “A balance of housing types and costs to match local employment and municipal residents' needs is part of this growth guide’s philosophy.

The current mismatch is a vigorous driver of sprawl pressure, and the force behind the prevalence in the area of extremely long commutes.

Simply, the municipal residential base and economic base should be planned together and sized to complement each other.”

LABOR FORCE SPREADING OUT

Written by Jon Chew for the 3/2004
"Inside Business" Magazine

If you have been in business for a while you may have noticed that the home towns of your new employees seem to be more and more distant. This is a long term trend affecting Greater Danbury, documented by U.S. Census commuter travel statistics.

Taking the City of Danbury as an example, employers in the City in 1970 could expect 68% of their workers to reside right in Danbury itself. With labor so close, problems like snow on the highways were less of a barrier to getting to work. But by 2000 only 43% of their employees resided right in the City.

The same pattern holds for Danbury’s suburbs. Many persons working in Brookfield also live there, 45% in 1970. But this nice near proximity for labor supply had dwindled down to 24% by 2000. For the same thirty year period, the rate in Newtown went from 53% down to 35%, and in Ridgefield from 59% to 28%. New Milford, second only to Danbury as an employment center, fell from 69% to 54%.

What is going on? Clearly, manufacturers and businesses can count less and less on their newly recruited employees finding homes in the same community as their new job. This is not surprising, in that local property tax laws seek to pull industry inside the town boundary and relentlessly push new housing on down the line to “somewhere else.” This disjointed phenomena is called “sprawl” and is the unpleasant down side of our land use planning system, to be rectified by “Smart Growth.”

Taking our view of commuting up to the next geographic level, we again have evidence that the trend for the labor force to spread out is quite broad. In 1980 Danbury employers could at least expect that the vast majority, 83% of needed labor could be found here in the ten town Greater Danbury Area. But by 2000 that figure had fallen to 67%. Should we worry that employees coming in from far away are more likely to switch jobs more often?

Again the suburban pattern follows suit. In 1980 Brookfield’s employers were able to fill 88% of jobs from the 10 town area, but by 2000 this was a lesser 73%. For Newtown the drop was 71% to 56% and in Ridgefield 80% to 67%. New Milford, with its vast geographic area and stock of affordable housing, bucked the trend somewhat and fell a lesser 79% to 73%.

There is no reason to believe that this dispersal trend for vital labor supply is slowing down.

This trend aside, we know we are favored with a regional economy having many strengths. But the greater distance needed to find labor is one indication of the serious shortage of affordable housing in our area.

Looking at the big picture, jobs in the region also filled by residents of the region fell from 89% 1970 to 68% in 2000. To make up the difference, between 1970-2000 we have continually imported more labor from all directions. From Greater Waterbury, 3% up to 7% of our total need. Then from New York State 2% up to 7%, the Stamford-Norwalk Area 2% to 5%, and from Bridgeport and its suburbs 3% to 5%. As for employees living in areas further out, their share went from 1% in 1970 to 8% in 2000.

So, the next time you advertise a job vacancy, you might also place it beyond this immediate area. With personal transportation costs rising, expect upward pressure on wages. And don’t be surprised when your employees lobby to liberalize the “snow day” closing policy.