Anika Singh Lemar

But the apartment buildings drew considerable pushback from neighboring homeowners who expressed concern that the development would result in a dramatic increase in vehicle traffic and negatively impact their property values. At a commission meeting last month, town lawyers added their voices to the opposition. Among other things, they said the property lacks the necessary access to fire trucks and suggested the town’s sewage system does not have the capacity to serve the development

Google Maps view of the two properties and the fire department next door

This one slipped by me, Stratford CT rejected a zoning proposal for 126 homes (not the site plan, the zoning) in part because "the property lacks the necessary access to fire trucks"

DESPITE THE FACT IT IS LITERALLY ADJACENT TO A FIRE DEPARTMENT 🚒🔥🧨😧🧟☠️

"Local Control" is a joke

Yes and apparently to our governor that support doesn't count.

To translate the New Englandese, First Selectmen are the executives of our lily white suburbs while only our cities call their executives Mayors.

At his press conference today Gov. Lamont, when asked who needed to come on board for him to sign a housing bill, said "Democratic First Selectmen" and the fact that in his book Democratic Mayors don't count tells you everything you need to know about who he thinks matters in this State.

Trump's homelessness order unites Lamont, housing advocates Lamont, legislators and housing advocates share a disdain of Trump’s order pushing cities to combat homelessness with involuntary commitments.

“We had a bill that did that,” said Rep. Antonio Felipe, D-Bridgeport, the co-chair of the Housing Committee. With his veto in June of House Bill 5002, Lamont sided with suburban opponents and Republican legislators who had urged a veto of the measure as an intrusion into local zoning.

until we start to tear down the red tape and regulatory barriers purposefully erected by many local officials who choose not to permit home construction in their towns,” according to a joint statement from the leadership of eight housing advocacy nonprofits across the state.

“We appreciate Governor Lamont’s words but will not be heartened until we see him act. We cannot address homelessness without housing and we cannot build enough housing ...

I do wish that someone, anyone, given a spot at the podium had had the nerve and moral clarity to call out the governor's hypocrisy here. While they ignored the elephant in the room, others named it: ctnewsjunkie.com/2025/08/04/c...

I would devour an essay on HOAs as a gateway drug for full blown fascism.

New Haven, CT proving they were the right choice to host YIMBYTown 2025.

it's crazy that you can be a writer for the new york times and not know who the current mayor of new york city is or the current budget of the NYPD, who despite a constant presence in the area failed to intercept a man walking around with a GIANT FUCKING LONG GUN

More Development Would Ruin Our Neighborhood’s Character and That Character is Systemic Racism When I heard our town was considering legalizing (gulp) duplex apartments to allow more housing, I was devastated. I’m not against people having ho...

"This neighborhood was built on certain principles, and it’s extremely important to maintain those principles and also not say them out loud where they could be used in court."

Scott, Warren Announce Markup of Landmark Bipartisan Housing Legislation from Banking Committee Members | United States Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs The Official website of The United States Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

I finally had time to digest it, and the big bipartisan housing package looks impressive. A little of everything, from zoning and NEPA to mortgages and vouchers. Lots of smart sensible tweaks, but also a sea change getting the feds in the game on zoning reform

www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/min...

David Jorgenson standing near the Park River in Hartford claiming to care about flooding

A photo of David's 10,951 sq foot house

Let's talk about NIMBYs and how they work to create a housing crisis shall we?

This is David, David lives in an 11k sq foot mansion and has seen his house value increase by one million dollars over the past 8 years. David wants to block 68 families from having a home

It's CT. The grocery stores are far from transit, the jobs are far from transit, we already force car ownership, transit-washing one's NIMBYism is completely disingenuous.

Car traffic in my neighborhood is a little messy on Saturday mornings. Farmers' market two blocks east and food pantry two blocks west. And I think about that every time a suburbanite tells me a location is bad for affordable housing because there's no nearby transit.

So many quotable bits, I aspire to writing like this. I am silently cackling at "his more popular nemesis"...

New Haven News Roundup Hello, friend. It’s been some time. But I was thinking. About New Haven. About the blog. About maybe writing something. I’ve had some collection of thoughts recently. So I’m shari…

I do enjoy Between Two Rocks when he occassionally blogs about New Haven. "But don’t worry. None of these changes will happen without more meetings. And meetings about the meetings. Maybe a few pre-meetings." www.betweentworocks.com/new-haven-ne...

great show though it's too bad Sen. Hwang couldn't make it and instead had to send a bot that sputtered out "one size fits all!, "local control!" or "process!" every few seconds. if he had been able to be there maybe he could've shared what his actual substantive concerns with 5002 are.

Took my youngest to a skateboarding clinic in a skatepark that the world's dumbest NIMBYs tried to NIMBY a few years back so that felt like a small win in dark times.

Donate to PBS

If you want to donate to a PBS station in a state that needs it the most, I made a list of all of the donation pages and a legend with how much of their budget relies on federal funding
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

There is so much wrong with this but one problem with these hard lines is they don't allow easing into different age-appropriate levels of independence.

I'm hiring a Director of Housing!! Come help us develop creative approaches to increase housing supply. In my completely unbiased opinion, we're doing really exciting & impactful work on one of the most critical policy issues of our time. Join our team!
www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/42...

The best part of the free fare debate is that virtually everyone at least claims to agree that fast, reliable, and frequent transit is necessary!

That’s an awesome starting point for getting bus lanes, transit signal priority, & better stops implemented. And we need so much of that all over the US.

I am super excited about the inevitable parodies of the Adams campaign's promised billionaire-funded digital media featuring "social-media influencers" in Montauk (which the WSJ helpfully points out is on Long Island).

2050 is closer than 2000 is, my 12 year old told me twice this weekend so now you have to hear it, too.

The academic’s mid-summer crisis is a mid-life crisis in miniature:

You realize summer is half gone, & not only that: you see that the longest & least burdened days came early, & they are well past. You compare all you thought you’d do against the days remaining & grieve for what never will be

"We have an affordable housing crisis. Tell me, who can live in a parking space? People need a roof over their head.”

onlyinbridgeport.com/wordpress/zo...

Best bit of court decision telling New Canaan where to shove a denial of 102 units: "Comments made by individual commission members in what little discussion there was that night are confusing and demonstrate, at best, a lack of understanding of what evidence was appropriate or how to consider it."