Can a Connecticut municipal housing authority operate statewide, or only inside the city or town that created it?

Plain-English summary

Connecticut's Department of Economic and Community Development asked whether a municipal housing authority could expand its operations to act as the housing authority for the entire state. The AG concluded it could not. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 8-40 creates the authority "in each municipality" and conditions its operation on a finding by the local governing body that the local need exists. The Connecticut Supreme Court in Connelly v. Housing Authority of the City of New Haven, 213 Conn. 354 (1990), confirmed that housing authorities are statutory creatures, and a 2011 AG opinion described Chapter 128 as a "pervasive regulatory scheme."

The AG noted that two or more municipalities could form a regional housing authority covering their combined territory. In theory, nothing in the statute would forbid all Connecticut municipalities from coming together to form one regional authority, but no such state-spanning regional authority existed at the time. A single municipal authority cannot bootstrap itself into statewide operation by its own decision.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2012. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Common questions

Q: Why can't a municipal housing authority just decide to operate statewide?
A: Because it is a statutory creature. It owes its existence to the legislation that authorizes municipalities to create it, and that authorization is scoped to the creating municipality. The authority has no inherent power to extend its reach beyond its statutory boundary.

Q: What is a regional housing authority?
A: A housing authority formed jointly by two or more municipalities to operate within their combined geographic territory. It is the statutory mechanism for cross-municipal cooperation in public housing.

Q: Could all 169 Connecticut municipalities form one giant regional authority?
A: As the AG observed, no statute expressly forbids it. But as a practical matter, that would require each municipality's governing body to act, and it had not happened. The opinion did not encourage or discourage that approach; it just noted the absence of an existing statewide regional structure.

Q: What if the state itself wanted a statewide housing authority?
A: That would require a separate legislative act creating a state-level entity. As of the opinion, the closest analog was the Department of Housing (created in 2012 by Public Act 12-1), and a separate AG opinion (2013-01) addressed whether DOH could function as a "public housing agency" under the federal Housing Act.

Background and statutory framework

Connecticut's Chapter 128 sets up the framework for public housing in the state. Section 8-40 creates a body corporate and politic, the "housing authority" of each municipality, contingent on the local governing body declaring need, based on findings about unsafe or unsanitary dwellings, a shortage of affordable rentals, or other listed conditions.

Connelly v. Housing Authority of the City of New Haven, 213 Conn. 354 (1990), is the leading Connecticut Supreme Court case on the statutory nature of housing authorities. They have only those powers the Legislature has given them. They cannot expand their jurisdictional reach by board vote, contract, or operational practice.

The opinion implicitly contrasted this scope with the Department of Housing, which the Legislature created in 2012 (Public Act 12-1) as a statewide successor to certain housing functions previously housed in DECD. A statewide agency exists; statewide authorities in the § 8-40 sense do not.

Citations and references

Statute:

• Conn. Gen. Stat. § 8-40
• Chapter 128, Conn. Gen. Stat.

Case:

• Connelly v. Housing Authority of the City of New Haven, 213 Conn. 354 (1990)

Prior AG opinion:

• Atty. Gen. Op. 2011-06, public housing authorities as statutory creatures

Source

• Landing page: https://portal.ct.gov/AG/Opinions
• Original PDF: https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/ag/opinions/2012/opinionangelo060512-pdf.pdf?rev=0fdace655c194fd385da331ce07a2fdc

Original opinion text

GEORGE C. JEPSEN
ATTORNEY GENERAL

55 Elin Street
PO. Box 120
Hartford, CT 06141-0120

Office of The Attorney General
State of Connecticut

June $, 2012

The Honorable Ronald F. Angelo, Jr.

Deputy Commissioner

Department of Economic and Community Development
505 Hudson Street

Hartford, Connecticut 06106

Dear Deputy Commissioner Angelo:

You have requested a legal opinion on whether a Connecticut municipal housing
authority is authorized to act as a housing authority throughout the entire State of
Connecticut. I conclude that a Connecticut municipal housing authority may only act as a
housing authority within the geographical boundaries of the particular municipality
forming the subject municipal housing authority, or, in the case of a regional housing
authority, within the geographical boundaries of the two or more municipalities forming
the subject regional housing authority.’

Housing authoritics in Connecticut are creatures of statute, Connelly v. Housing
Authority of the City of New Haven, 213 Conn, 354, 361 (1990), and the statutes
governing the creation and powers of public housing authorities constitute a pervasive
regulatory scheme, see Atty. Gen. Op. 2011-06. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 8-40 authorizes the
creation of public housing authorities and provides that:

In each municipality of the state there is created a public body corporate and politic
to be known as the “housing authority" of the municipality, provided such authority
shall not transact any business or exercise its powers hereunder until the governing
body of the municipality by resolution declares that there is need for a housing
authority inthe municipality, provided it shall find (1) that insanitary or unsafe
inhabited dwelling accommodations exist in the municipality or (2) that there is a
shortage of safe or sanitary dwelling accommodations in the municipality available
to families of low income at rentals they can afford or (3) that there is a shortage of

Although there appears to be no express prohibition in Connecticut statute against
every Connecticut municipality coming together to form one “regional” housing
authority serving every municipality in the State, no such regional housing
authority exists.

The Honorable Ronald F. Angelo, Jr.
Page 2

safe or sanitary dwelling accommodations in the municipality available to families
of moderate income at rentals they can afford. In determining whether dwelling
accommodations are unsafe or insanitary, said governing body may take into
consideration the degree of overcrowding, the percentage of land coverage, the
light, air, space and access available to the inhabitants of such dwelling
accommodations, the size and arrangement of the rooms, the sanitary facilities and
the extent to which conditions exist in such buildings which endanger life or
property by fire or other causes. The governing bodies of two or more
municipalities may create a regional housing authority, which shall have all the
powers, duties and responsibilities conferred upon housing authorities by this
chapter and chapter 130. The area of operation of such authority shall include the
municipalities for which such authority is created.

Conn, Gen. Stat. § 8-40 (emphasis added).

The above statutory language makes clear that a housing authority is created by and
operates within the geographical boundaries of the municipality, or, in the case of a
regional housing authority, municipalities which create the subject housing authority. See
also City of Norwich y. Housing Authority of Town of Norwich, 216 Conn, 112, 122-23
(1990) (holding that public housing authorities are creatures of both the state and the
municipality creating the authority). Nothing in § 8-40 suggests that one municipality may
create and operate a housing authority outside its geographical boundaries (or the
boundaries of a partner municipality with which it creates a regional housing authority)
and such an interpretation would contravene long standing Connecticut law. See Baker v.
Norwalk, 152 Conn. 312, 315 (1965) (holding that a municipality is a creature of the state
and can exercise only such powers as are expressly granted to it), Therefore, it is my legal
opinion that a Connecticut municipal housing authority may only act as a housing authority
within the geographical boundaries of the particular municipality forming the subject
municipal housing authority, or, in the case of a regional housing authority, within the
geographical boundaries of the two or more municipalities forming the subject regional
housing authority. /

vefy tr uly yours,
GEORGE JEPSEN
ATTORNEY GENERAL