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With severe weather becoming a much bigger risk in Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont announced he’s proposing legislative changes to adapt the state’s real estate markets and planning practices.

The governor’s office cited four recent disasters as motivating his promised legislative package:

  • Rain storms on Aug. 18 that delivered severe flash flooding in Fairfield County, Litchfield County and New Haven County, resulting in three deaths and nearly $300 million in damage;
  • Repeated heavy rainstorms in January of last year that resulted in a near-failure of the Fitchville Pond Dam in Bozrah and severe flooding of the Yantic River in Norwich;
  • Severe flooding in September of 2023 that collapsed two bridges and stranded families in Scotland; and
  • Far below-normal precipitation levels last fall that caused an extended period of drought, leading to critical fire conditions and several brush fires throughout the state, including a large fire on Lamentation Mountain in Berlin and Meriden that took several weeks to fully contain and resulted in the line-of-duty death of a firefighter.

“These severe weather events aren’t just happening on TV in faraway locations, they’re happening in our backyards. It is urgent that we take the steps necessary to make sound investments that harden our infrastructure, defend our natural resources, and enact the protections we need to save human lives, property, and livelihood,” Lamont said in a statement. “This is a critical issue that ought to be near the top of every lawmaker’s priorities, and for the sake of the people of Connecticut I want to work with the legislature this session on enacting a comprehensive resiliency bill.”

Lamont promised to deliver nine proposals to the General Assembly “in the coming days” that will combine to increase the notifications homeowners and renters get about flood risks, reduce state investment in high-risk flood areas, increase the amount of local flood-risk planning done and make it harder to build single-family homes along the coast.

First, Lamont says he’d like to require homeowners and renters get notified about flood risks when they buy or sign a lease, similar to current state lead disclosure laws, if a property is in a flood zone or if it has a history of flooding. The governor’s office said he also plans to propose a requirement that mortgage lenders notify homebuyers about the availability of flood insurance and make those buyers sign an acknowledgement if the decline to purchase a flood policy.

The governor also proposes to change several aspects of planning law.

Given that development has been increasing in areas at risk of flooding outside of coastal areas, Lamont proposes to increase the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s oversight of some coastal and wetlands-adjacent development plans.

The governor also wants to remove single-family homes’ exemption from coastal site plan review, and require more coordination between local and regional plans when it comes to various climate risks.

He also is proposing to prohibit state investment in areas at the highest risk for floods.

“Residential construction in the highest-risk floodplain areas increases disaster response and recovery burdens, increases displacement, and creates an outsized risk to residents and responders. So too does the development of public infrastructure that serves these structures,” his office said.

Lastly, the governor is proposing three measures to improve the state’s flood defenses, starting with modifying existing local aid programs to make clear they can be used to improve communities’ climate resiliency.

He also wants to establish a “transfer of development rights” program that lets towns and cities incentivize development towards less-sensitive areas, and require culverts and bridges statewide be catalogued and geolocated, to make defending against floods and rebuilding after them easier.