Where is it, and what’s the plan for adding more?

Enter The Heights, an income-restricted complex that is managed by the Darien Housing Authority and offers around 106 affordable apartments.

“It just changed our lives. I don’t really know what we would have done had this not been available to us,” DeFrietas, 75, said. “And it’s just so needed. Everywhere in this country. There’s just not enough housing.”

For years, Darien has been touting its success in addressing a county- and state-wide dearth of affordable housing. And while progress is slow, it’s been steady, local officials say.

A recently-completed affordable housing plan says the town still needs to build 100 or more units in order for it to reach its goal — a moratorium on creating more income-restricted residences.

Foreseeing conversations fraught with emotion over building those additional units, advocates are ramping up campaigns in town that emphasize the need for fact-based dialogue surrounding affordable housing.

Success — and failure

Local officials have spent the past few years lauding Darien’s work in building multi-family, denser housing.

Build enough units, score enough points, and the state’s 8-30g statute — which allows developers to circumvent local zoning boards and build larger developments — no longer applies to that community. The community can then limit any increase by imposing a moratorium — a pause — in fielding new larger housing requests.

The town succeeded in gaining two moratoriums in 2010 and in 2016, handed out by the state as reward for the number of affordable housing units constructed.

But that goal of putting in another moratorium also runs up against what advocates and elected officials are increasingly pointing out: There is a shortage of housing stock for people who work in service industries or those who are younger renters.

Approximately 98 percent of the town is developed already, so new plots of land are hard to come by, as the town’s new affordable housing plan notes.

Even when multi-unit, affordable complexes are created, demand outstrips the number of spaces available. The waitlists for the 55-unit The Royle and 106-unit The Heights complexes closed earlier this year.

Town officials have created a list of suggestions for the town to actively encourage affordable housing in town: Enlisting the nonprofit Habitat for Humanity to revitalize blighted properties, creating an entire Affordable Housing zone and allowing single-family users to build affordable units on their own property.

Pushing back against pushback

Officials and advocates must also contend with significant community pushback in some cases.

In the past, residents have volubly argued against attempts to build high-density housing in areas that have traditionally been zoned for single-family homes.

Housing advocates, local and otherwise, have decided on a better course of action: walk audits, inviting residents of towns like Darien to traverse the paths from the train stations to the housing complexes in an effort to understand why, exactly, affordable housing is so necessary — and how to sell it to the community at large.

During a June 29 walking tour in Darien, Joe Warren, the chair of the Darien Housing Authority, said the town must reassure neighboring residents that their immediate neighborhood will not be “destroyed,” Warren said.