Creative Commons License

Gov. Ned Lamont has repeatedly touted the progress Connecticut towns are making toward building more housing, but recent state data shows that some towns in the state are seeing a net loss of housing units.

Many towns are seeing fewer housing units being built, and in a few places, more are being demolished than built. Because of this, some towns have seen decreases in their net number of housing units from 2023 to 2024, and in five of Connecticut’s nine “Councils of Government” regions, the net increase in housing units slowed from 2023 to 2024.

Earlier this summer, Lamont unexpectedly vetoed House Bill 5002, a sweeping housing measure that would have pushed towns to reform their zoning laws, among other measures. The Democratic legislature made the bill a priority and worked with Lamont’s staff to negotiate the details.

Lamont said he wanted to see a law that towns would support. Housing advocates and lawmakers have said that’s difficult, and many towns are simply unwilling to add affordable units without a push from the state.

“Most of them [towns] have already come to the table,” Lamont said when he announced the veto. “Now we’re going to get a lot more specific. Show me what you want your town to look like. Show me where you want the diversity of housing.”

Rob Blanchard, director of communications for the governor’s office, said although the state has made “great strides” to address the housing shortage, post-pandemic building costs have impacted supply.

“Connecticut is also reported to have some of the most constrained housing supply in the nation, which has exacerbated our shortage,” Blanchard said. “Although the state has been working to break ground and fund new development, including 7,000 affordable housing units currently under construction, the governor believes that we can also move forward through greater engagement and collaboration between builders and local community leadership.”

Lamont also focused on the need for increased affordable housing in his 2023 State of the State address, vowing to not let the state fall into a housing crisis.

“But the biggest slam to our affordability and economic growth is housing, or the lack thereof,” Lamont said at the time. 

“Connecticut towns and cities, you tell us where developers can build more housing so more housing can be built faster, at less cost, and local control will determine how and where it is built,” Lamont continued.

But between 2023 and 2024, five of the nine COG regions saw decreases in housing growth. Only one region, Greater Bridgeport, saw increases in housing starts above 1% compared to 2023, and according to the 2026 to 2027 economic report of the governor, this slowing is expected to continue.

The report predicts that housing starts, or the number of residential housing projects under construction, are projected to continue to decline by 2.9% in FY 2026 and 1.9% in FY 2027. They are predicted to increase slightly in FY 2028.

The net growth in the number of housing units statewide from 2023 to 2024 dipped by 1,442. This comes after steady increases from 2021 to 2023. 

Lamont’s administration has made large investments in housing, including promising almost $1 billion toward housing in the last bonding package. But a report from CT Insider showed that in 2024, the state hit a 13-year low in the number of state-assisted units built.

Sasha is a data reporting fellow with The Connecticut Mirror. She graduated from the University of Maryland in May with a degree in journalism and a minor in creative writing. For the past year Sasha was working part time for the Herald-Mail, a newspaper based in Western Maryland. She was also a reporter and copy editor for Capital News Service, the university’s wire service where she covered the state legislature, the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse, school board elections, youth mental health and climate change. Earlier in her college career, Sasha also interned at the Baltimore Magazine and wrote for numerous student publications including the Diamondback, the university’s independent, student-run newspaper.

Ginny is CT Mirror's children's issues and housing reporter. She covers a variety of topics ranging from child welfare to affordable housing and zoning. Ginny grew up in Arkansas and graduated from the University of Arkansas' Lemke School of Journalism in 2017. She began her career at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette where she covered housing, homelessness, and juvenile justice on the investigations team. Along the way Ginny was awarded a 2019 Data Fellowship through the Annenberg Center for Health Journalism at the University of Southern California. She moved to Connecticut in 2021.