What’s Really Going on With Parking in Fairfield?

To the Editor:

It’s time to address the recent commentary raising alarms and claiming that the Town Plan & Zoning Commission is ignoring a significant "July 1 deadline" in HB 8002, a new state housing law.

What is the purpose of HB 8002?

The new law was passed because Connecticut has a genuine, severe housing shortage. A recent Realtor.com state-by-state report card gave Connecticut an F (46th of 51), citing weak homebuilding activity and a median home price requiring well more than 30% of median income. Whatever one thinks of the law's specifics, it responds to a real problem.

What is the July 1 Deadline?

The deadline is about minimum off-street parking requirements (for example: parking lots and parking garages for residential projects). The law requires municipalities–by July 1–to adopt regulations that eliminate minimum off-street parking requirements. The exceptions to this are areas known as Conservation and Traffic Mitigation Districts (or, Parking Exclusion Districts). Fairfield has been in compliance since March, when the Commission adopted the new parking regulations, well ahead of the July 1 deadline.

What Are Parking Exclusion Districts?

Parking exclusion districts are a mechanism for towns to bypass the new rules and continue enforcing mandatory parking quotas in specific neighborhoods. Under the law, a town may designate a maximum of two parking exclusion districts, with each ≤4% of town’s area for a total of 8% of the town. There’s no cutoff in the state statute for creating the parking mitigation districts: the Commission can designate these districts after July 1 just as easily as before. Every project that gets filed goes through a process in front of the TPZ. There are no automatic approvals. Moreover, developers are incentivized to voluntarily provide ample parking in response to market demand.

A Flawed Survey with Skewed Conclusions

Much has been made of a resident-created survey that several people are using to drive this debate. It included leading language like “the real threat” and “higher risk neighborhood” if the author’s favored districts weren’t chosen for priority. What’s more, it’s not a scientifically representative cross section of people in town. The survey was taken by a relatively small, self-selected group and promoted via social media to likeminded people.

Policy Disagreements Are Normal, Bad-Faith Accusations are Not

For those who are frustrated that no mitigation districts have been designated, a legitimate policy disagreement about pace and being outvoted on a motion is not evidence of bad faith. It's worth saying plainly: suggestions that the Chair or Town staff acted deceptively, or that a planning director's hearing comments reflect dishonesty rather than professional judgment on a complex question, aren't fair characterizations of people doing difficult work in public view.

Fairfield is better served by good-faith debate than by unnecessary alarm.