With the arrival of Autumn here in Connecticut, many embrace the spooky, Halloween-y spirit. There’s no better place in New England to dance with the macabre than in Salem, Massachusetts, sight of colonial America’s most infamous episode of mass hysteria.

In 1692 dozens of Salemites were executed for the crime of witchcraft. When one visits the somber memorials and kitschy shops today, it’s easy to indulge in morbid daydreaming. What if witches, the Devil, and all his diabolical servants are real, after all? It can be thrilling to give oneself a good scare.

While it is unclear if supernatural forces remain at work in Salem, the city faces the same mundane challenges of home affordability as anywhere else. Recently, Salem eliminated municipal parking minimums for multifamily housing structures. Instead of requiring builders to set aside a specific number of off-street parking spots for all new construction, the city allows developers to determine the appropriate quantity to provide. Satanic black magic? Nope, just good policy.

Studies have shown time and time again that when cities and towns mandate arbitrary parking minimums for residential and commercial construction, they drive up rents and home-prices, while simultaneously enforcing automobile dependence on residents.

If asked, most Nutmeggers would say that they want to live in a walkable community and that homes are too expensive these days. If you ask them, however, if they support policies that lower housing costs and increase pedestrian accessibility, many recoil in fear.

What’s so scary about housing reform? Many Connecticut residents are terrified of the same kind of common-sense adjustments that Salem’s City Council passed almost unanimously. Connecticut’s HB 5002, the much maligned housing affordability bill debated this summer, included a provision to loosen local parking minimums. While it passed in both houses of the Democratic-led state legislature, Gov. Ned Lamont was pressured to veto the bill after pushback not just from Republicans, but members of his own party.

Why? Many of HB 5002’s opponents were frightened by the bill’s regulatory shifts. I sympathize with these anxieties, but I think the bill’s opponents are worried about the wrong things.

Let’s consider parking minimums. Many who support mandatory off-street parking minimums insist that developers will not build enough parking unless forced, but evidence indicates that this isn’t true. In addition to driving up housing costs, mandatory parking minimums create a paved-over infrastructure that inhibits walkability.

Automobile emissions are a major driver of climate change. When we reduce mandatory parking minimums, we facilitate walkable development. This in turn lowers our carbon footprint.

Opponents of HB 5002 should ask themselves: What is scarier? Climate catastrophe or walking to the grocery store?

Let’s talk about home affordability. Opponents of HB 5002 considered the bill’s provision for by-right multifamily construction in commercial areas to be downright demonic. Local residents, they argue, should be empowered to resist careless developers, who would build structures that increase traffic or mutilate local character. This fear of inappropriate development is understandable, but misplaced.

Excessive public input regarding home permitting leads to fewer homes and higher prices. It may seem democratic to require public approval for housing developments, but public meetings are not necessarily representative of the majority of residents. Ask any town official (off the record) and they will tell you that most public commentary is less a rational analysis of the potential outcomes of a given project, and more an opportunity for cranks to take their social media ramblings to a captive audience.

Opponents of HB 5002 should ask themselves: What is scarier? A shopping plaza being modified to include townhomes without your personal approval, or watching your children move away because a home in town is unaffordable?

Almost all Connecticut Republicans opposed HB 5002. I think this was a poor political strategy, because the party has recently made impressive gains with working-class voters. The GOP should support policies that create an easier path to homeownership for this constituency.

Stranger still was the bill’s Democratic opposition. NIMBYism in blue states has placed the Democratic Party in a precarious electoral position. Liberal strongholds like California, New York and Illinois are hemorrhaging voters to red states, where home construction is able to keep up with demand. If Democrats don’t start building homes in states they control, a presidential candidate in 2032 could win every state that Joe Biden won in 2020, and still lose the electoral college.

Democratic opponents of HB 5002 should ask themselves: what is scarier? A few new apartments in town or a permanently Republican-occupied White House?

‘Tis the season for a good scare, but when Connecticutians reject reasonable changes in the way we plan our communities, we accelerate global warming, increase the cost of housing, and isolate residents from each other. That is one scare I could do without.

Matthew Silber lives in Norwalk.