Jericho resident tells committee HOAs and zoning are making rural town unaffordable

Chuck Lacy, a member of the Jericho Housing Committee, told the House General and Housing Committee on April 3 that homeowner association covenants and local zoning have combined to make Jericho effectively a gated town.

"Over the last 40 years, I've watched Jericho turn from being a town where regular people could come and live and build families into what is now an exclusive town," Lacy said, describing long‑term demographic change and arguing the town now has many more older residents than younger ones.

Lacy said he reviewed town deeds and estimated there are about 2,000 dwellings in Jericho, with "over 500 homes" subject to restrictive covenants that ban everything but single‑family houses. Those covenants, he said, typically bar mobile homes, duplexes and multifamily buildings and require large lots.

"HOAs are private zoning," Lacy said. "They should not have private zoning that is more restrictive than the public underlying public zoning," and he added that towns sometimes act as participants—maintaining roads, for example—while those private rules prevent municipalities from meeting housing objectives.

Lacy criticized narrowly targeted state provisions that would require automatic approvals only where municipal water and sewer exist. He said developments under construction include nine‑lot projects with 27 to 45 bedrooms collectively, and it is inconsistent to permit many bedrooms across large single‑family lots while limiting apartments because of sewer service rules.

He also described local zoning and infrastructure constraints: only about 6–7% of Jericho's land is designated for growth, many septic systems are more than 30 years old, and infill is limited by financing, permitting complexity and the preferences of existing homeowners.

Lacy gave recent output figures for context: "Last year we built 14 houses, average cost $963,000," and he said only two accessory dwelling units (ADUs) were added, one aided by a $50,000 subsidy. He urged broader acceptance of triplexes, four‑units and other multifamily housing in rural areas so that such communities are not effectively reserved for wealthier households.

Committee members thanked Lacy for the local perspective and asked him to provide written materials and to consider testifying to the environment committee on land‑use matters that overlap with his testimony. The committee recessed for lunch with markup of S328 and S89 scheduled after the break.