Gov. Ned Lamont stood up in front of a room full of housing people in New Haven on Thursday and talked up Connecticut's big new housing law, the same law he vetoed in an earlier form a little over a year ago. At the annual Connecticut Housing Conference at the Omni Hotel, he said towns and suburbs are taking the lead on building more housing, CT Mirror reported.
Some quick background. Lamont vetoed the original bill in June 2025, saying it didn't have enough "buy-in" from towns and suburbs. A revised version passed in a special session last November, and he signed it.
Lamont said that "here in New Haven, and here in most of our towns and cities, we're taking an old parking lot and reimagining it for housing." He added, "We're taking an office building that's only 30% occupied and converting offices back into housing."
What the law actually does for builders
The law runs 107 pages, and a lot of it is about planning, rent and homelessness policy. But several pieces land right on the jobsite. Here's what stood out to me from the state Office of Legislative Research's summary of the act, known as Public Act 25-1:
- Parking for small projects. Starting July 1, 2026, local zoning officials and commissions can't reject a residential development with fewer than 17 units just because it doesn't meet off-street parking requirements, unless the lack of parking would cause a specific health and safety problem that can't be fixed with conditions. For projects with 17 or more units, a developer can rebut the town's parking minimums with a parking needs assessment. Towns can still create up to two districts where the parking rules apply to smaller projects.
- Middle housing on commercial land. Also starting July 1, 2026, towns that zone under the main state zoning law must allow "transit community middle housing," meaning buildings of two to nine units like duplexes, triplexes, cottage clusters and townhouses, along with mixed-use buildings on any parcel zoned for commercial or mixed use. Those projects get only a summary review. If a project follows local zoning, it can be approved without a public hearing, variance or special permit.
- Housing growth plans. Every town has to adopt a housing growth plan or join a regional one and update it every five years. Towns that comply can qualify for a new state grant program that helps pay for public infrastructure.
- A middle housing grant program. The Department of Housing will run a grant program to help housing authorities in towns of up to 50,000 people add middle housing.
- Manufactured homes. Zoning regulations must treat manufactured homes that meet federal standards like any other dwelling, no matter how small they are.
The law also expands fair rent commissions and bans "hostile architecture," like structures designed to keep homeless people from lying down.
The headwinds
Speakers didn't pretend building is easy right now. Lamont, Housing Commissioner Seila Mosquera-Bruno and others pointed to tariffs and high interest rates. Mosquera-Bruno pushed developers in the room to find new ways to cut construction costs. "Every dollar that we do not justify is a person that we can't provide housing for," she said.
The need is real. Connecticut is one of just three states that have lost housing units per capita since 2020. A Pew Charitable Trusts report last month found high housing costs are driving more than 20% of poverty in the state. Pete Harrison, a housing advocate who moderated a panel on the law, called it "a little bit of a Rube Goldberg machine," but said at its core it's a promise "that we need to build more homes and more kinds of homes."
Not everyone is sold on the law. Lamont is up for reelection in November, and his Republican opponent, Ryan Fazio, told CT Mirror the law "undermines local control and also doesn't improve housing affordability and availability."
Asked whether the state would keep putting the same resources into housing, Lamont answered: "Housing's going to be our No. 1 priority."
Why it matters for Contractors
For small and mid-size builders, the parking and middle housing changes may matter more than anything else in this law. Parking requirements and public hearings are often what kill a duplex, a six-unit building or a small mixed-use project before it starts. With those barriers lower on commercial and mixed-use land since July 1, there should be more room for exactly the kind of two-to-nine-unit infill work local contractors are built for. Check your town's zoning, find out whether it has created any parking districts, and talk with your clients who own underused commercial lots. The rules may let them build sooner than they think.