This story is part of CT Mirror Explains, an ongoing effort to distill our wide-ranging reporting into a "what you need to know" format and provide practical information to our readers.

By the time Connecticut’s 2025 legislative session ended on Wednesday night, lawmakers had adopted a new biennial state budget and passed dozens of bills concerning a wide range of issues, from relief on energy costs to reforms to Connecticut’s special education cost sharing system.

Several of the major bills that gained final approval this year addressed issues that lawmakers had repeatedly — and unsuccessfully — tried to tackle during previous legislative sessions.

Here’s a look at some of that legislation.

‘Work, Live, Ride’ and fair share

H.B. 5002, a wide-ranging housing bill, is the most significant piece of housing legislation to emerge from the Connecticut legislature in years. It contains multiple provisions that housing advocates have asked for during the past few legislative sessions.

Among them is a proposal known as ‘Work, Live, Ride,’ which aims to get towns to increase housing supply near train and bus stations by prioritizing certain infrastructure funding for towns that establish “transit-oriented districts,” where certain development is allowed without special hearings before the planning and zoning commission.

Advocates have raised proposals like ‘Work, Live, Ride’ for the last several years, and it passed committee as a standalone bill during the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions. In 2023 it died before a vote on the House floor, and in 2024, it passed the House but was not called for a vote in the Senate.

H.B. 5002 also includes a policy known this session as “Towns Take the Lead.” The proposal analyzes the regional housing need, then divides that need up among towns and assigns each a set number of units. Towns would have to include how they’d plan and zone for those units in their 8-30j plans, which are due every five years.

[RELATED: What to know about H.B. 5002, the omnibus housing bill]

It’s similar to fair share policies proposed in past sessions, and uses the methodology from a fair share policy to determine how many units of affordable housing towns would need to plan and zone for, with a general goal to increase housing stock and cut down on segregation.

The bill contains some other specifications for the housing, including requirements to build units for families and for certain income levels.

Climate change

For the last two years, environmental advocates have made no secret about their frustrations with lawmakers over a lack of major progress on climate issues, with criticisms heaped upon Democrats following the demise of past efforts to adopt stricter timelines for reducing carbon emissions, roll out electric vehicles or join with other states to purchase offshore wind power.

But this year, the legislature passed two priority bills over the final weeks of this year’s session — one promising to set Connecticut on a path to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, the other contemplating how to deal with the unavoidable aspects of climate change.

One of those major bills was Senate Bill 9. The majority of the bill, nearly 50 pages, focused on preparing for the impacts of climate change with updates to the state’s water plan, requiring towns to consider sea level rise when making zoning changes and mandating flood risk disclosures for homebuyers and renters, among other provisions.

The other was House Bill 5004, net-zero emissions legislation that also included a hodgepodge of incentives for solar canopies, energy-efficient heating and cooling systems, green jobs and sustainability-focused businesses.

Early childhood education

In 2023, Gov. Ned Lamont convened a “Blue Ribbon Panel” of experts to develop a five-year plan for Connecticut’s early childhood education system.

In its final report to Lamont, the panel laid out the policy steps and funding required for “an equitable, high-quality, and sustainable system that ensures that every child has a quality educational foundation that will prepare them to grow, learn, and succeed.”

Then, this year, lawmakers passed a bill promising to transform early childhood care and education for generations of families.

Senate Bill 1 would create a new endowment for early childhood education that would draw up to $300 million from surplus funds each year. Depending on surplus funds available and how quickly the fund grows, it would eventually allow families making less than $100,000 to pay nothing for infant and toddler care and pre-K, while families making more than that would pay no more than 7% of their annual household income toward those expenses.

The bill would also improve salaries for workers in the child care sector and allows for funds to be spent on expanding or improving facilities.