Connecticut currently ranks 49th in the nation for housing production, 46th in the nation for housing affordability and has the lowest rental vacancy rate of any state. Roughly half of renters and a third of homeowners are paying more than they can afford just to keep a roof over their heads. Connecticut is lacking hundreds of thousands of housing units needed to meet the demand, and we got here because building the kind of home a young family or a working renter can afford has been made illegal almost everywhere in this state. When you outlaw the housing working people can afford, you don't get to act surprised that working people can't afford to live here.

Gov. Lamont had the chance to fix this, and he chose not to. On June 23, 2025, his own administration helped negotiate House Bill 5002 and then he vetoed it. He sided with the far right interest groups and Republicans over the people who need to see that housing built. Montana, under a Republican governor and legislature, legalized duplexes and rolled back parking mandates in 2023. If a deep-red state can build that coalition, Connecticut has no excuse. Even housing advocates note that zoning reform has crossed party lines more in other states than it has here.

I'm not running to sign another bill that lets towns opt out. My administration will make building more housing easier to do, and we will put the shovels in the ground to build that housing .

The solutions:

Put Shovels in the Ground and Start Building Today: Connecticut currently ranks 49th in the nation for housing production. There were around 7,000 housing permits filed in 2025, which is roughly half a percent of the nation's total. Even what gets built is too expensive to compete with existing homes. Connecticut has a housing shortage and until shovels get in the ground to build that housing, we are going to continue to see housing prices rise. Supply has to come first. Connecticut currently bans most of the housing working people could afford. As Governor I will support the following:

• Legalize middle housing statewide by right: duplexes through nine-unit buildings approved administratively, with no discretionary hearing that can kill a project.

• End parking minimums near transit, not just for the small buildings HB 8002 covers. Within a half-mile of transit, let the market decide how much parking to build, the way California's AB 2097 does statewide, with no carve-outs for wealthier neighborhoods.

• Build on state-owned land and underused DOT parking lots near rail and bus lines, instead of leaving transit-adjacent property sitting as asphalt.

• Cut minimum lot sizes, one of the most direct tools towns use to block density and hold prices up.

• Allow smooth, administrative conversion of vacant commercial and office space into housing overseen by the Connecticut Department of Housing.

• Fix current building and fire code statewide standards, and identify ways to make changes that keep tenants safe, while encouraging more housing development.

Protect our Tenants from Onerous Evictions: Connecticut's housing crisis has pushed many working families into renting longer than they planned. Some rent because it's the more affordable option. Some rent because they're moving somewhere new or starting over. Whatever your reason, renting shouldn't mean facing the same fear every time your lease is up: whether you can afford to stay, or whether your landlord will decline to renew because they have other plans for your home. As Governor, I will support the following:

• The strongest Just-cause eviction protections in the country. No tenant, anywhere, should be subjected to an eviction without a true cause. These causes do not include: tenant organizing activity, political opinions, gender orientation, or the sale of a property to a corporation.

• Build on the fair rent commissions HB 8002 created for towns over 15,000 residents and extend it further. Offer incentives for municipalities that establish a commission

• Statewide rent caps set by the Department of Housing that considers the cost of living and inflation so no one is priced out of their home overnight. It is understandable if rents gently rise but massive, profit driven increases will not be allowed.

Build a Green Housing Workforce: We need workers to build our next tranche of housing supply. With a generation coming out of college about to contend with AI taking entry level work, we can offer these students and workers a solution. We can build the workforce necessary to take on this task, and ensure these are good paying, attainable jobs that offer strong benefits and retirement. As Governor I will work on the following: 

• Work with union labor, our college and university system, and DOH to build more career pathways for students to obtain a union job focused on housing development.

• Dedicate state funding to go towards building a ‘Green Housing Jobs Corp’. These workers will be trained in building the next generation of housing in a sustainable way that is good for the environment, and ensures racial equity is at the center of the work.

New Statewide Standards: Lamont's unnecessary vetoing and watering down bills created a system that lets every town choose between joining a regional plan or writing its own minimum and checking back in five years. The towns most responsible for the shortage are exactly the towns most likely to choose the minimum. Spreading the obligation across every town is also the only way to stop the displacement that comes from concentrating all new construction in the same few cities. As Governor I will:

• Restore the fair-share requirement Lamont's veto stripped out so every town plans for its share of housing growth, on a fixed schedule, with real consequences for towns that chose to ignore it.

• Replace opt-in regional planning with a binding statewide production standard, built on the version of HB 5002 his own administration helped negotiate before he killed it.

• Adopt ADU as of right standards statewide to provide even more diverse housing options.

• Update the state’s 8-30g laws to allow for modular homes to count towards the requirement as long as they are deed-restricted and remain affordable.

• Allow Connecticut places of worship to be able to build affordable housing units on their unused land.

Defend the Federal Vouchers and Public Housing Connecticut Families Already Depend On: More than 150,000 Connecticut families rely on federal rental assistance representing well over a billion dollars a year in support residents already count on. The Trump administration has moved to cut the HUD staff who administer these programs and consolidate the field offices that process them, and Connecticut has already been warned that permanent housing programs serving thousands of residents could lose tens of millions of dollars. A state that doesn't backstop this is choosing, quietly, to let people lose their housing. As Governor I will:

• Use the state's Federal Emergency Relief Fund to backstop vouchers and permanent supportive housing if federal funding is cut or delayed. 

• Direct the Department of Housing to track and publicly report any reduction in voucher issuance, HUD processing capacity, or delays affecting Connecticut residents in real time.

• Expand the state's own Rental Assistance Program as a deliberate hedge against federal instability, instead of treating it as an afterthought to the federal program.

Connect Housing to School Funding and the Towns That Are Shrinking: Towns that are losing population and closing schools are very often the same towns that have made it illegal to build anything a person under 40 can afford. When the only housing available is a large single-family home on a large lot, young families can't move in, the population ages in place, enrollment falls, and the fixed cost of running the town gets spread across fewer people. The fix for affordability and the fix for a shrinking tax base are the same project. As Governor I will:

• Pair zoning reform that allows starter homes and middle housing with a direct fix to school funding. The Education Cost Sharing foundation hasn't been increased since 2013, and the towns under the most fiscal stress are carrying the most weight.

• Let towns that want to rebuild a stable population actually do it, instead of asking them to manage decline with a smaller tax base every single year.

Create a Connecticut Housing Production Fund: A generation of renters has watched wages fall farther behind home prices every year they've waited to buy. Connecticut's main tool for building affordable housing is a competitive tax-credit process that funds a handful of private developments a year, and the affordability it buys eventually expires and reverts to market rate. In order to compete in this market, Connecticut can build its own housing, targeting unused properties, and build vibrant communities. As Governor I will:

• Capitalize the fund through state bonding and let the Department of Housing build and own mixed-income housing directly, instead of only financing private developers.

• Target these builds around old or unused office spaces and near downtowns to create more walkable communities.

• Make every project permanently affordable by design. Market-rate rents in the same building fund the below-market units, and the affordability never expires, because the public never gives up ownership.

• Require affordability commitments on new construction, so building more doesn't just mean building at the top of the market.

Lamont's record on housing is a veto on a bill he negotiated and opt-outs built into the bill he finally signed. Mine will be measured in shovels in the ground, building a new generation of housing Connecticut can afford. Let’s get to work.