Letter: 'Crony Capitalism Expanding The Failure Of Socialism'

**Opinion Submitted by Ridgefield Selectman Chris Murray**

April 30, 2024

Ridgefield residents should be aware of proposed statewide housing legislation that is a complete game changer. They amount to a qualitative loss of local control, unrestrained development, environmental damage, and significantly-increased costs to taxpayers.

The issue as Democrat legislators believe is that to solve housing affordability, the State must dismantle local zoning control. The legal premise is that the State granted local control; therefore it can take it away. The political premise is that Ridgefield is racist.

Local control is a virtue to be celebrated and protected. One-size-fits-all legislation, with power in the hands of a central bureaucracy is bad. Ceding local control over management and protection of local resources, increasing costs to local taxpayers and completely changing the character of small towns is bad. Resistance isn't racist, it’s common sense.

Big-city leaders are on record saying they want to, in effect, export their subsidized-housing populations to the suburbs. Through proposed legislation which permits big- city housing authorities to build anywhere in the state, as of right. Is the corollary objective to make room for luxury development in the big cities? This is the worst of crony capitalism protected by the veneer of fairness expanding the failure of socialism.

Legislators can't be pro-tenant ("Just Cause Eviction" legislation) and solve the affordability issue. Take incentive and financial control away, and housing won't get built. Politicians gravitate to political solutions that queer the math. Developers prudently won't take risk if the rug can get pulled out from under them. Pro labor legislation and burdensome regulatory costs don't help the math either. They ultimately just raise the cost --- to Tenants. Politicians, ultimately, are the last people you want deciding these issues.

And then there is how the sausage gets made. Hartford’s predilection to pass legislation without public input in the dark of night is fundamentally undemocratic and destroys trust. It speaks volumes about our legislators' integrity, not to mention the legislation itself, that they try to slip new laws by before the public can protest.

Ridgefield residents need to let their state legislators know to reject currently proposed harmful housing legislation.

Chris Murray, Selectman
Ridgefield