Housing Mythbusters #1

Housing Mythbusters

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

Mark Twain

We respect the concerns of those who are opposed to creating Affordable Housing in our Town. But more and more we are hearing misinformation being quoted as fact. It is much harder to spread the truth.

Housing Mythbusters is GHT's effort to counter the misinformation. When we hear about a MYTH, we will issue a Housing Mythbusters. We know it is hard sometimes to distinguish reality from FAKE NEWS. We hope our Housing Mythbusters Updates will help.

Myth #1: GHT Has Plans to Build 166 Housing Units

One of the MYTHS we heard from a meeting held on Saturday June 22nd at Woodridge Lake is that we have (secret) plans to build 166 units all around Town.

NOT TRUE!!

The Goshen Housing Trust has no plans to build 166 units of Affordable Housing. Never did.

Let's think about this together. We started our effort to build 16 rental units on the Beach Street parcel in 2017.

Given the application process to the Inland Wetlands Commission and the Planning & Zoning commission for the approvals we need, it will likely be at least 2022 before we have housing that people can occupy. We will have spent at least four years to get 16 units of Affordable Housing in place in our Town. At this pace, it would be 41.5 years to create 166 units of Affordable Housing!

GHT likes to plan but 166 units is WAY beyond our planning horizon. It is probably also WAY beyond Goshen's need for Affordable Housing.

We think the 16 units we propose for Beach Street will have a HUGE positive impact on our Town. Again, there is NO quality rental housing available in our Town today. There is NO housing suitable for seniors wishing to downsize from their large, empty family homes. Just think about the positive impact of 16 families living here in Goshen instead of going someplace else can have on making Goshen a Stronger Community.

We really don't know, but we think whoever is spreading this information decided to scarce people by using the fact that the State of Connecticut has established a goal for each town of having at least ten percent of their housing stock be Affordable Housing. If you use the Goshen Housing stock numbers published by the Partnership for Strong Communities (which are based on the 2015 American Community Survey), the Town of Goshen has 1,633 housing units of various types. If you apply the State of Connecticut guidelines, the Town of Goshen should have about 163 Affordable Housing units. We suspect that this number is where this MYTH originated.

That doesn't mean this is our goal or plan. It is not.

The Litchfield Housing Trust in our neighboring town has been addressing this problem for far longer than we have - for 30 years. In that time, they have managed to create a total of 47 units of Affordable Housing, only about 1% of the 4,151 housing units in the Town of Litchfield. We would consider ourselves hugely successful if we are able to do the same in the next 30 years for Goshen.

REPORT THOSE MYTHS!

Have you heard a MYTH? Let us know so we can address it.

Send your MYTHs to GoshenHousing@optonline.com

Thank you!

ATTEND OUR INFORMATION MEETING

Please join us and plan to attend our first Information Meeting on July 27th, Registration is required but there is plenty of room!

Learn about why affordable housing is important for Goshen.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Visit Our Website at http: www.GoshenHousingTrust.org