Local land-use boards, which make zoning decisions about where housing, businesses and industrial spaces get built in each Connecticut town, are disproportionately composed of older, white male homeowners — and not demographically representative of the communities they serve, a study of New London and Fairfield Counties found.
In a new report, the Housing Collective, a housing reform nonprofit, examined 105 land-use boards across the two southern Connecticut counties. In both counties, just under half of the general population is male, but 70% of planning and zoning board members are men.
Nearly 60% of Fairfield County is white, but white individuals make up over 90% of land-use board members there. In New London county, over 70% of the county’s population is white, but white people make up nearly 100% of land-use board members.
Most board members are also older. The median age of board members in the two counties was between 60 and 65, while the overall median age was 20 years younger than that. While only about 70% of residents, across both counties, owned their homes, the study found more than 90% of board members were homeowners.
“It’s the thing that we all know in our hearts,” said Melissa Kaplan-Macey, chief initiative officer of Centers for Housing Opportunities, which is part of the collective. “But then when you do the research and you look at the data, it’s still shocking at the same time.”
Advocates for denser housing development and zoning reform say this disproportionate representation could affect the way land-use decisions are made.
“If you had local land-use boards that were representative of the communities that they serve,” said Kaplan-Macey, land-use boards would then be “responding to the full needs of a local community — not just a small subset.”
But others say representation that doesn’t exactly align with the demographics of a community isn’t necessarily a problem — as long as the work is done responsibly.
Land-use boards are required to follow local laws and town ordinances, said Betsy Gara, executive director of the Connecticut Council of Small Towns. So overrepresentation of any one demographic, “shouldn’t make a big difference,” she said.
Still, Gara added, “I think it would certainly be valuable to have more diversity on local boards and commissions,” though she noted it can be difficult to fill board seats, especially in small towns. Many municipalities make efforts to recruit people to participate in local government, she said.
Volunteer led and locally rooted, land-use boards help form what communities look like, how much green space they have, and even how much space there is between the front of a home and the road.
Filling seats on these boards is not so simple. There are two primary ways the seats get filled. Depending on a town’s bylaws, board members are either elected or appointed. Both options present challenges.
Nick Kantor, program director at Desegregate CT and a board member on Norwalk’s Planning & Zoning Commission, said there tends to be a bias against new housing development among voters who show up for municipal elections.
Nationally, voter turnout for renters has lagged behind homeowners for congressional elections in recent years. More broadly, renters are significantly underrepresented in government offices across the United States.
“That’s pretty well documented,” Kantor said. “And that could be challenging for folks to break through.”
Appointments, while technically easier than elections, still require a level of community engagement and awareness from participants. This means municipalities and towns have to do more outreach to draw broader interest in open positions on land-use boards.
Once a candidate is elected or appointed, they must undergo a state-mandated four hours of training within their first year.
Once seated on a land-use board, the job — which is unpaid — can be a significant commitment, Kaplan-Macey said. That can make it harder for people who have kids, more than one job, or those who attend night school to join the boards.
Kaplan-Macey said she’d like to see land-use board members be paid for their work. “I think it would be a whole different scenario, honestly, if we had stipends available that could cover child care or cost of transportation or [the] cost of people’s time,” she said. “If it was actually treated as a second job, I think we’d have a much larger pool of applicants.”
Kantor said while there are excellent examples of younger people on planning and zoning boards who are excited to serve, it’s also true that younger people tend to rent or move around, and aren’t as likely to put down roots, which could explain the underrepresentation of young people on land-use boards.
It’s also no easy job serving on one of these boards, said Joseph DeLong, director of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. Members must deal with complaints and grievances often, he said.
“Many of these planning and zoning boards, at times become villainized for what hasn’t happened without being recognized for some of the incredible work that they have done,” he said.
All of these factors can result in certain segments of the population more frequently serving on land-use boards, he said. “What you often end up with are people who are at a stage in life where they don’t have as many responsibilities,” DeLong said.
“But it also can lead to some boards and commissions that are very heavily weighted by people who are no longer in the workforce, [or] that are no longer raising their children, or are no longer facing some of the economic challenges that maybe the majority within the community are.”
DeLong said that disproportionate representation isn’t only prevalent in land-use boards — it persists broadly across local government structures.
“So I think it’s a very important, very real issue,” DeLong said. “And I say that as an old white man.”
In 2021, CCM started a two-day program in partnership with Yale University called Representation Matters, which trains people of color to run for government and community leadership offices, including land-use board seats.
The Center for Land Use and Education (CLEAR) at the University of Connecticut, which offers training for land-use board members, has long operated Land Use Academy, a training program that works with students in emerging demographics who are interested in land-use training.
Renata Bertotti, assistant land use planning educator at CLEAR, said she’s heard from students that making weekly meetings more flexible for board members could broaden access and incentivize involvement of younger demographics.
“That may be that switch that ends up happening at some point, because we are seeing some younger bodies in our training as well,” Bertotti said.
DeLong agreed. “We have to recognize that we are living in a new world, post-COVID.” DeLong said, adding that local ordinances and statutes can more easily be adjusted for remote and hybrid meetings now. “Frankly, you probably get stronger participation from the commissioners if you create that flexibility. But more importantly, you get stronger engagement and viewing from the general public as well.”
That type of community engagement is also key, advocates say, to widening participation.
The Lower Connecticut River Valley Council of Governments, or RiverCOG, recently received a state grant to train board members in public engagement and to build more comprehensive approaches to land-use planning among members.
“We ended up surveying our members of the regional housing committee to ask them what they needed help most with,” said Megan Jouflas, Deputy Director of RiverCOG. “And the number one response was public engagement.”
RiverCOG is working with interns to improve their social media presence as a form of broadened outreach.
The Housing Collective’s report also recommended communities practice broader public engagement and outreach.
In its study, the Housing Collective reported that an average 10% of board members across both counties are serving on expired terms, with an additional average of 10% vacant seats in New London and Fairfield Counties.
Kaplan-Macey said she sees that as an opportunity. “So then you have a full 20%. There’s a real opportunity there of addressing that imbalance in terms of representation,” said Kaplan-Macey.
Janhavi Munde and Ginny Monk are reporters for the Connecticut Mirror. Copyright 2025 @ CT Mirror (ctmirror.org).