Priorities

Connecticut is one of the least affordable places to own or rent a home. We need to build more homes and more affordable homes. The state should help support new housing growth, affordable housing construction, and homeownership. Connecticut should:

• Protect tenants: Prohibit landlords of larger buildings (greater than 5 units) from evicting good standing tenants without cause, limit rent increases on newly acquired properties, and extend recently passed requirements for mold remediation to be completed by certified professionals from 1-5 unit homes to all homes.
• Liberalize zoning: Allow as-of-right duplexes or ADUs on all single family parcels statewide, further upzoning along transit corridors, limiting constraints on new construction, such as setbacks, minimum lot size, and lot coverage, and removing restriction on the number of unrelated people who can share a home.
• Finance social housing: Allocate bonding to a housing production fund that makes low interest construction financing available to local housing authorities which agree to build mixed income developments. This model has proven successful in building high quality, mixed income homes in Montgomery County, Maryland.
• Restrict megalandlord acquisitions: Large landlords dominate housing markets in cities like New Haven. The state should restrict further acquisitions of 1-3 unit properties to make these available to real people — not big corporations. At a minimum, the state should require a waiting period for these large landlords to purchase 1-3 unit properties.
• Kickstart bio-based construction: Establish an accelerator program to support mass timber construction, a climate-friendly building technique which make use of regional timber and stores carbon.

Connecticut needs to empower renters, make it easier to build new clean energy, and protect ratepayers from bearing the costs new data centers.

• Democratize access to solar energy: Connecticut recently created a legal framework for plug-in solar devices. As these devices become available, the state should pass legislation to ensure that landlords cannot block tenants from using plug-in systems to reduce their energy bills.
• Energy bill transparency: Connecticut should provide prospective tenants and buyers with at least one year's bill history for gas and electric service so they have an understanding of utility costs before they rent or buy a home.
• Eliminate data center tax incentives: That's it. Connecticut residents should not directly subsidize data center development.
• Protect ratepayers from data center costs: Establish new tariffs to ensure data centers bear the cost of new infrastructure and prioritize data center development that funds new clean energy generation and home energy efficiency upgrades.
• Cap solar permit fees and speed inspections: Cap building fees for solar/storage systems at $250 and require municipalities to allow for virtual inspections and third party inspectors.
• Reform clean energy interconnection: To speed up interconnection, Connecticut should adopt standardized fees, enforceable timelines for review, and cost-sharing mechanisms.
• Prepare for potential development of fusion energy: Fusion energy developments may make it a viable source of power. Connecticut should prepare for this by defining fusion generation in statute and adding it to its renewable portfolio standard.

Our neighborhoods will benefit from street safety improvements, faster service on the Dixwell corridor, and free bus service in cities. Connecticut should:

• Invest in traffic safety improvements: The Dixwell corridor sees a high percentage of Hamden's fatal and severe crashes and the bus rapid transit project must include traffic calming improvements to make Dixwell safer for all users. Adjacent corridors in Highwood and Newhall also need traffic calming investments to improve safety.
• Fund the proposed Dixwell bus rapid transit service: Continue development of bus rapid transit on the Dixwell corridor to enhance the speed, reliability, and frequency of service.
• Expand fare free bus service: Bus service should be free for all users. Recent commitments for free fares for veterans and students should be expanded to the elderly and then to all passengers. This will speed up service, encourage the use of public transit, and reduce air pollution.
• Require registration for mopeds: Registering mopeds can improve street safety and reduce noise and pollution from these vehicles.
• Extend electric vehicles (EV) rebates to older EVs: As more used EVs become available, extending EV rebates to vehicles more 3 years old will allow low/moderate income residents to purchase more affordable EVs.
• Create a legal framework for fully autonomous vehicles: Autonomous vehicles promise safer driving but are currently only allowed in Connecticut with human supervision in certain test municipalities.

Connecticut's tax code should work for working families, not just the wealthy.

• Increase taxes on the top bracket: Increase income and capital gains taxes on the top tax bracket by 1%.
• Provide property tax relief: Increase the property credit for homeowners and provide an equivalent benefit to renters.
• Provide working families tax relief: Join other New England states in implementing a child tax credit of at least $300.
• Child tax credit
• Increased property tax credit
• Increasing income tax/capital gains taxes for top income bracket

Every child deserves a quality education in a safe, well-funded school.

• Increase state funding to match inflation: State education funding should increase to $16,000 to match historic inflation and weighting for state funding should be adjusted to increase support for districts with greater proportions of low-income and English language learners.
• Increase facilities repair funding: The state should provide additional funds to assist districts with regular repairs so students can learn in healthy and dignified environments.
• Support best practices literacy instruction: With 1 in 6 New Haven third grade students reading at grade level, the state should hire a network of literacy coaches to help implement best practices in the science of reading and improve outcomes in struggling districts.
• Invest in early childhood education: Continue to fund the early childhood education endowment to make childcare free or affordable for every Connecticut family.
• Require transparency in local budgeting: The state should require Boards of Education to publish line item budgets.