37 Small City Anchor Institutions • Feature • Kooris CMDA works with municipalities to map Development Districts around transit stations and walkable corridors to guide future regulatory and infrastructure investments. To date, 11 communities have partnered with CMDA to codevelop these zones to expand housing availability, even if land is limited, and support greater economic stability. Town-Gown Relationships Kills Housing In many of these communities, “meds and eds” cities both limit housing availability and distort local housing politics. The “town-gown relationship has created this kind of fear and aversion to certain housing typologies,” says David – a pattern he has seen repeatedly in cities with significant student populations that are contending with the “studentification” of housing in their neighborhoods: parties, low upkeep, and temporary populations. This political aversion to new multi-family housing occurs often even when a proposed project outlines intentions to target a different population. CMDA has to navigate this as they provide recommendations and zoning reviews for cities like Bridgeport, Fairfield, Stamford, and New Haven, that cusp the Merritt Parkway and I-95 corridor. Fairfield is where the main campus of Sacred Heart University is located, but since the institution does not offer on-campus housing for all students, upperclassman and graduate students tend to rent in Bridgeport’s north end. In the same neighborhood, at the Fairfield border in Bridgeport, there was a proposal to build a multifamily housing unit intended to provide a smaller housing type for Fairfield divorcees, as this population has gone up and people are looking for an apartment style housing type, rather than a larger single family property. The city ultimately denied this proposal because of “a political aversion to any multifamily housing because of the risk that it would be dominated by graduate students.” Given the location, the city of Bridgeport Development District; New Haven, CT.
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