#53 Legally Enforceable Covenants that Keep Us from Building Affordable Housing
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
via Zoom
Much attention, justifiably so, is given to eliminating exclusionary zoning regulation. But the “dirty little secret” that prevents even the most ambitious inclusionary zoning programs from ever working is the fact that nearly three-fourths of all new developments, both attached and detached, have homeowners’ associations with declarations of covenants and restrictions that often legally prevent any affordable housing being built, regardless of the zoning.
What is the extent of this problem? What can be done going forward to prevent it from becoming even worse? Can any of it be unwound and, if so, how?
Leading the discussion will be Gregory W McCracken, a partner at Jacobs, Walker, Rice & Barry LLC. His practice focuses on common interest community law. He started his career in HOAs learning from the country’s leading figure that area of the law, Gurdon H. “Don” Buck, and now brings to the bar his own 30 years of experience in the field
With him will be CBF Fellow Dwight Merriam, a land use planner and lawyer, who recently succeeded Judge Fuller as author of Connecticut Land Use Law and Practice. He and Prof. Sara Bronin are the co-authors of Rathkopf’s Law of Zoning and Planning. He has written about legally enforceable restrictions https://lnkd.in/eHyp8caE and was an ABA Section Advisor to the Uniform Law Commission in its recent development of the Uniform Unlawful Restrictions in Land Records Act, co-chaired by CBF Fellow Barry C. Hawkins.
Facilitators:
Attorney Dwight Merriam
Attorney Gregory W. McCracken
Jacobs, Walker, Rice and Barry, LLC
