“The aim is not, ‘How does New Haven become a city of 150,000 people?’” New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker said. “The aim is ‘How does New Haven become a city of 150,000 thriving people?’”
In his State of the City address on Monday, Elicker acknowledged that part of the answer to his own question has to do with a thoughtful approach to new housing.
“It’s really important that as we grow as a city, that we grow inclusively because you’ve seen with a lot of other cities that have grown rapidly that the people that have been living there for a long time all of a sudden can’t afford to live there and get pushed out,” Elicker said.
According to state data, from 2011 to 2022, New Haven was second to Hartford for the highest percent increase in affordable housing in Connecticut.
“We don’t just want to be a city that has affordable housing and market right housing. We want to be a city that mixes them together,” Elicker said.
Erin Boggs, executive director of Open Communities Alliance, said one approach to accomplishing that is through inclusionary developments.
“Where those get tricky is where the percentage of units that are required to be affordable and the depth at which they’re affordable actually hamstrings the market,” Boggs said. “We need to protect affordability and choice in places that are changing and perhaps becoming more mixed income. We also need to make sure the door is open to places that already have lots of resources.”
Elicker said that right now in New Haven, there are roughly 3,500 new housing options on the way, 40% of which are affordable units.
“All these big buildings that are coming up, they pay taxes and they pay a lot of taxes and as they phase in their tax payment to the city, it helps our residents kind of alleviate some of the tax burden there, but it also helps us pay for more services,” he said.
He noted that as the population grows, additional municipal services ranging from firefighters to building inspectors will be necessary.
“Our employee costs, if people want more services in the city, we need to pay for them, and we’ll do so in a way where we’re hiring good people. We’ll be as efficient as possible, but ultimately these things cost money,” Elicker said.
