In Connecticut, a homeowner hopes to use a density bonus rule in the state’s affordable housing law to turn a backyard barn into three separate apartments despite prickly opposition from neighbors.
Rose Marino, who owns a single-family home on Putnam Park Road in the quiet town of Bethel, CT, has put forward a plan to build three one-bedroom units in a two-story barn situated on her 1.2-acre property.
“I am not a big-time developer, or even in that realm,” Marino tells Realtor.com®. “I’m just a nanny who works in New Canaan trying to figure out a way to afford Connecticut, because it’s becoming impossible. So I figured if you can’t beat them, join them.”
The plan relies on special rules that allow for new multifamily construction in some areas otherwise zoned for single-family homes, if the projects include a certain share of qualified affordable housing.
In her application, which city officials shared with Realtor.com, Marino says at least 30% of the new residential rental units—in other words, a single apartment—will be designated as “affordable housing” under Connecticut law, with a maximum rent of $1,287 per month.
Marino’s application is scheduled for a public hearing on April 28, where it faces opposition from neighbors who fear the rental units will be detrimental to the character of the neighborhood.
Change of plans
According to public records, Marino purchased her property for $425,000 in December 2024.
But she tells Realtor.com that a three-unit development was not part of her original plans.
“The main reason I am doing this project on my property is because when my husband, Anthony, and I bought this property a little over a year ago, we thought it would be perfect to turn the big garage—really, it’s an old barn—into a one-bedroom ADU,” she says.
After doing some research, Marino says she discovered that was not allowed in Bethel under current zoning ordinances.
“So I tried to figure out what we could do,” she says, “and a developer was already trying to build a six-unit development on my street at the time—so that’s when I started researching 8-30g.”
Connecticut’s affordable housing law explained
Connecticut’s affordable housing statute—commonly referred to as 8-30g after its section in state law—requires municipalities to ensure that at least 10% of their housing stock qualifies as affordable.
In towns like Bethel that fall short of this threshold, developers are given greater ability to bypass local zoning regulations in order to build new housing.
Enacted in 1989, the law aims to increase the availability of affordable housing across the state by requiring that developments include units reserved for households earning 80% or less of the area’s median income.
Approval was granted last year for an 11-unit apartment development with affordable housing components on a single-family parcel in Bethel.
The additional housing is sorely needed in the small town on the outskirts of Danbury, where median home prices rose 12% year over year to $547,725 in March 2026.
Neighbors voice concerns
The floor plans submitted by Marino show a ground-level apartment in the shed with a spacious kitchen, dining room, living room, and bedroom, and two smaller upstairs apartments with compact kitchens, living areas, and bedrooms.
But not everyone is in favor of those plans being approved.
Marino’s neighbors James and Charlene Welsh wrote an email to city officials that said in part, “The concerns we have is the number of vehicles, added traffic visual aspects, how would this affect our resale of property value and safety of all concerned.”
The neighbors objected that parking availability was not specified on the site plan, and that there was no stormwater runoff plan available for public review.
“As mentioned, we are not trying to be negative but wanted to voice our concerns to the Board,” the email said.
Connecticut’s dire housing affordability issues
Connecticut’s housing market currently faces steep affordability challenges.
Connecticut earned an F on the Realtor.com State-by-State Housing Report Card, which tracks how effectively each state balances affordability and new construction to meet housing demand.
Connecticut earned a total score of 28.3 in the report, placing it among the lowest-ranked states nationwide.
The state’s median listing price of $507,500, paired with a median household income of $95,781, illustrates the deep mismatch between wages and housing costs. Connecticut’s affordability score shows that even higher-income households may struggle to find homes within reach in this area.
On the construction front, Connecticut accounted for just 0.4% of all new-home permits in 2024 while representing about 1.1% of the U.S. population. That yields a weak permit-to-population ratio of 0.36, signaling that the state is building far less than needed.
The new-construction premium—the difference between the price of new and existing homes—was 68.2%, among the highest in the country, suggesting that most new builds target the luxury market rather than middle-income buyers.
Altogether, the data paints a picture of a state sorely in need of additional housing units, even if they come at the small scale of Marino’s backyard project.
“Though three rental units in a backyard barn are probably not what the designers of the Connecticut law had in mind, it’s encouraging to see the provision being used to add housing density in a place that badly needs it,” says Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner.
“This creative use of the statute combined with the resistance from neighbors over parking and aesthetics makes this situation a perfect microcosm of the struggles to add housing in underserved parts of the country.”
