A Different Kind of College Town
The town planner from Mansfield, Connecticut, told me that professors at the University of Connecticut tend not to live in their college town because the houses are so run down.
I was surprised. Here in Swarthmore, when college professors don’t live in town, it’s often because the houses are so expensive.
I’d called the Mansfield planner, Linda Painter, because I wanted to hear about the town’s Affordable Housing Plan, passed last year. What kind of response did they get from residents? How did the plan’s proponents persuade the town to support it? How did the town council respond to the kinds of concerns I’ve heard in Swarthmore, for instance that permitting single-family houses to be converted to duplexes, or legalizing garage apartments (i.e., accessory dwelling units, or ADUs), might hurt property values or cause unwelcome noise or congestion?
But Linda reported that the residents of Mansfield didn’t have many objections. Their questions tended to be less about money than about logistics. “Sometimes people would call and ask how a project would affect their getting in and out of their driveway, if they lived opposite a building,” Linda said. “Technical things like that.”
She must have seen my startled look through the Zoom screen. “We’re a very progressive community,” she explained.
Campus of the University of Connecticut in Mansfield
I got Linda’s name from DesegregateCT, an organization that campaigns for zoning reform across Connecticut in order to “make communities more equitable, affordable, and environmentally sustainable.” They have created a zoning atlas of their state and an easy-to-understand playbook for advocates of zoning reform anywhere.
Hearing that I was interested in learning from a community that was addressing the affordability crisis, the staff at DesegregateCT recommended Mansfield because it’s also a college town. That’s true, but what a different kind of college town! Unlike Swarthmore with its modest population of 1,400 undergraduates, Mansfield’s UConn has 12,000 students and Division I sports.
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs)
Still, the concern of some Swarthmoreans that permitting, for example, ADUs would spread noisy, disorderly college students throughout the town is a very real worry in Mansfield. To address this concern, Linda told me, the town requires that either the main dwelling or the ADU be occupied by the owner. This owner-occupancy requirement helps ensure that the renters won’t be too noisy or make too much of a mess.
The bottom line about ADUs in Mansfield, according to Linda? “They allow people to stay in their homes.”
For townspeople having trouble paying their mortgage or taxes—possibly because of an illness, job loss, or retirement—the rental income makes it possible for them to remain where they are.
Beyond Zoning Changes
Mansfield also has an Affordable Housing Trust, created last November. Money from the trust will help income-eligible residents with down payments, make repairs that will allow them to stay in their houses, and create accessible homes for people with disabilities. Although the money from the trust isn’t available yet, the town’s new Affordable Housing Committee is tossing around ideas to fund it. These include small fees for building permit fees and proceeds from the payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) the town gets from the university. (As a non-profit, the university is tax exempt, so it makes non-tax payments to its home municipality instead.)
Swarthmore College, too, pays a PILOT, largely to support the police, fire, and ambulance services the borough provides. These days, the amount of the PILOT is about $350,000. The college also pays property taxes on the hundred-plus houses and apartments it rents to faculty and staff.
That’s a substantial contribution. Still, I find myself wondering whether the college board and administration might consider some further creative partnership to help keep the borough more equitable, affordable, and environmentally sustainable—what it would be worth to them.
I wonder what it’s worth to all of us.
