DATA: A deeper look at Mansfield’s affordable housing problem

MANSFIELD — Jaden Zer­ing, a grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut, lived off-cam­pus dur­ing his final two years at the university.

Zer­ing, who hoped to live inde­pen­dent­ly, described the rental mar­ket in Mans­field as “frus­trat­ing, to say the least,” because of the high rent prices. As a result, he decid­ed to live with friends to reduce costs. 

This afford­abil­i­ty issue is a prob­lem that has affect­ed not only Zer­ing and Mans­field but the entire state.

From 2016 to 2017, the per­cent­age of afford­able hous­ing in Mans­field sharply fell from 10.7% down to 6.9%, accord­ing to CT Data. A falloff that Mans­field May­or Anto­nia Moran cred­its to the con­struc­tion of The Oaks on The Square, an apart­ment com­plex in the mid­dle of the UConn campus. 

With the sud­den influx of units in the town caused by this con­struc­tion project, “the per­cent­age of rental hous­ing that is deed-restrict­ed plum­met­ed,” said Moran.

Deed-restrict­ed hous­ing, which is anoth­er term for afford­able hous­ing, is hous­ing that is restrict­ed to ensure that the units remain afford­able to indi­vid­u­als or fam­i­lies with low­er incomes.

Because of this sus­tained dip below 10% afford­able, the town of Mans­field cur­rent­ly falls under Con­necti­cut State Statute 8–30g. This statute allows devel­op­ers to bypass local zon­ing reg­u­la­tions if they pro­vide 30% afford­able units for 40 years.

“We have one devel­op­er that is plan­ning to build 8–30g hous­ing off of Hunt­ing Lodge Rd., but most the devel­op­ers are going through plan­ning and zon­ing,” accord­ing to Moran.

Fur­ther­more, from 2016 to 2017, the total num­ber of assist­ed units in Mans­field dropped from 641 to 416. A num­ber that has con­tin­ued to slow­ly decline over the past six years, down to 379 units in 2022, accord­ing to CT Data.

As a result of the town’s hard­ships in mak­ing hous­ing more afford­able, the town coun­cil estab­lished the Afford­able Hous­ing Com­mit­tee on Octo­ber 25th, 2021.

The com­mit­tee iden­ti­fied a 28% increase in medi­an rent cost from 2010 to 2019. Dur­ing this same peri­od, the per­cent­age of rental units that make up the town’s hous­ing stock increased from 36% to 47%. The com­mit­tee cred­its that rise to the con­struc­tion of new rental units and the con­ver­sion of for­mer­ly own­er-occu­pied homes into rentals, accord­ing to the Town of Mans­field Afford­able Hous­ing Plan.

As men­tioned, this prob­lem is not spe­cif­ic to Mans­field. Statewide, the medi­an price of rent increased from $982 to $1,180 from 2010–2019. Dur­ing that same time­frame, Mans­field saw a $302 increase itself, accord­ing to CT Data. 

Anoth­er exam­ple of the statewide strug­gle with afford­able hous­ing can be seen in how many towns fall under the 8–30g statute. In 2022, out of the 169 towns in Con­necti­cut, only 29 had above 10% afford­able hous­ing, while 94 towns had under 5% afford­able hous­ing, accord­ing to CT Data.

Accord­ing to Forbes, Con­necti­cut has the 9th high­est cost of liv­ing across all 50 states in 2023. 

Ulti­mate­ly, Mans­field is a micro­cosm of the afford­able hous­ing issue that exists across the state.

How­ev­er, Moran said the town has plans to put Mans­field above the 10% thresh­old again, say­ing that the town now requires each devel­op­er who goes through the plan­ning and zon­ing reg­u­la­tions to have 15% of their units as deed-restrict­ed afford­able housing.

“The fact of the mat­ter is that there is oth­er afford­able hous­ing in town.” How­ev­er, Moran also admit­ted, “There is very lit­tle qual­i­ty hous­ing. Those apart­ments tend to be old, they can be in pret­ty bad shape, and they are cer­tain­ly pret­ty small.”

Moran also said she has toyed with the idea of using hous­ing trust fund mon­ey to help these cur­rent apart­ment com­plex­es and allow them to upgrade their build­ings on the con­di­tion that they make the unit deed-restrict­ed affordable.

While the unflat­ter­ing afford­able hous­ing sta­tis­tics in Mans­field could eas­i­ly be attrib­uted to the stu­dent pop­u­la­tion, Moran still admits, “We do have some peo­ple who don’t have enough mon­ey to buy a house in this mar­ket or just want to rent, and those folks are hav­ing a hard time find­ing afford­able housing.”