Christina Lee, Head Photography Editor

This September, a national pro-housing development conference will be coming to New Haven.

DesegregateCT will host advocates, academics, policymakers and stakeholders from across the country at the annual housing-focused YIMBYtown conference, which will feature tours in New Haven. The conference, named after the pro-housing YIMBY — or “Yes In My Backyard” — movement, tends to focus on increasing affordable housing and transit and has a history of noticeable bipartisanship.

“The YIMBYtown conference is really a way to get everybody together and trade ideas, trade stories and strategies, and think about really big philosophical challenges and tensions,” said Pete Harrison, the director of DesegregateCT. “We think really practically about what messaging works and what bill language works, with the purpose of growing the movement and keeping it as big of a tent as possible.”

Harrison is expecting this year’s conference to draw leaders and thinkers from across the political spectrum, both from Connecticut and from the rest of the country.

The national housing shortage has been a hot issue in New Haven, having led to protests by local advocacy groups and action by municipal government, including increasingly inclusionary zoning and recognition of tenants unions. 

“We’re making progress, but we’ve got a lot more work to do,” New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker wrote to the News. “I look forward to our city staff participating in the conference to share what’s working in New Haven and to learn about what’s working in other cities across the country.” 

Most recently, DesegregateCT has been promoting its “Work Live Ride” plan, a bill passed by the Connecticut House last session that incentivizes the creation of new housing near public transit hubs, and advocating for more funding for rental assistance and homelessness services. 

DesegregateCT was selected to host YIMBYtown over groups in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and North Carolina, according to Harrison.

“​​We’re trying to leverage that this huge national conference is coming [to Connecticut], and we really want to have some immediate success stories this year,” Harrison said. Although the 2025 legislative session adjourns on June 4, he hopes the announcement of the YIMBYtown conference will put additional pressure on legislators to pass policies addressing climate change, transportation and land use reform.

Connecticut has yet to pass significant zoning reforms at the state level, and each municipality in Connecticut can set its own zoning ordinances. Although the state may seem “relatively progressively governed,” Harrison believes many are still resistant to the sort of housing and transportation changes DesegregateCT promotes.

YIMBYtown is also looking to highlight initiatives New Haven and local organizations have taken to alleviate the housing crisis and bolster public transportation. Elm City Communities, for example, is a “leading” public housing authority in mixed developments, Harrison said, and Park New Haven, the public parking authority, has invested in bike shares. 

“I hope that one thing it highlights is just how great of an environment this is for the development of housing and homes because we have great public transit,” Alexandra Daum, a member of the YIMBYtown advisory committee and Yale’s associate vice president of New Haven Affairs, said. She noted that New Haven’s train station and airport can connect people to a multitude of destinations and that the city is extremely walkable.

Several Yale faculty members who focus on housing policy or urban planning also plan to participate in the conference, and several already serve on YIMBYtown’s advisory committee. 

David Kooris, one such member of the advisory committee, is looking forward to the knowledge that guests from out of state will bring to Connecticut.

“It’s one thing to hear about it, but it’s another to hear from the people that worked on it, to hear directly from folks who got a challenging rezoning through committee or got a policy through their state legislature or their local legislative body,” Kooris said. “To hear exactly what they learned from that I always find of great value.”  

YIMBYtown 2025 will take place from Sept. 14 through Sept. 16.