STAMFORD — The house at 70A Alvord Lane has been sitting empty for almost a year. The walls are painted milky yellow, the floor is covered in foam play pads and plastic crates are full of toys.
Gladys Contreras pays the rent nonetheless, since in a few months, she hopes the empty house will be a full-blown day care facility. Children will play in the yard, as part of a group day care facility, just like she’s always envisioned.
But getting there hasn’t been easy.
Child care providers, like Contreras, often struggle with the municipal barriers they say slow operators from opening bigger facilities or expanding existing ones. The problem has commandeered the attention of city and state officials alike, with everyone scrambling to find a solution to the lack of affordable, high-quality child care.
Unintended consequences
In Stamford, solving that problem has hit an unrelated impasse.
Changes to rules that would require fewer public hearings and approvals for new or expanded child care facilities were folded into an “omnibus text change” passed by the zoning board earlier this year.
The omnibus package, which included a myriad of other tweaks, including one that encouraged residential development in office buildings, ignited a months-long political storm in Stamford. The Board of Representatives this month repealed the zoning board approval, citing concerns over the office buildings section and the “process” used to pass it.
Because of that decision, some child care providers must continue to get special permissions to open facilities, especially in residential parts of Stamford.
While the permissions, some urban planners say, help minimize adverse impacts on neighborhoods, especially residential ones, advocates for the child care industry argue that the requirement is at worst crippling and at best redundant.
“One cannot operate child care in Connecticut without a license from (the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood), and their approval process is extensive,” Adam Cowing, an attorney with Yale Law School’s Community and Economic Development Clinic, told the Board of Representatives in May. “They vet providers; ensure compliance with local zoning, building, fire and health codes; and inspect every child care to ensure the health and safety of children.”
Cowing represented Contreras in her attempt to turn 70A Alvord Lane into a child care facility. Like her attorney, Contreras attempted to dissuade the Board of Representatives from rejecting the omnibus — and she wasn’t alone.
Owner Nichelle Waddell poses with Asher Ben Simon, 2, at Watch Me Grow Daycare in Stamford, Conn., on Thursday June 16, 2022. Child care providers, like Waddell, are flush with demand, but there’s a problem for providers throughout Stamford. They argue that the local zoning process is more restrictive than the state licensing requirement.
Christian Abraham / Hearst Connecticut MediaHer sister Dora Ramos and Nichelle Waddell — both child care providers in Stamford — made almost identical arguments to the board and had nearly identical experiences navigating the permitting process. The process is expensive, intimidating and long, they say. None of the women expected the approvals process to be so cumbersome when they got into the industry.
Despite plans from federal and state officials attempting to fix America’s child care problem, they think the most pressing obstacles are at home, they said.
Racking up bills to pay the bills
Waddell knew that opening her North Stamford day care facility, Watch Me Grow Daycare, was chancy after spending years in the corporate finance world.
“I took a gamble so I could get approved, grow the business, support my family,” she said. It’s a gamble that was ultimately worthwhile, but not one that she fully understood when changing careers.
Waddell had to apply twice to expand her family day care into a group day care during the height of the pandemic. Family child care facilities are the smallest facilities in the state’s eyes. They can serve up to six children and are operated out of a person’s home. Group day cares are home-based but can serve up to 12 children.
Waddell said that she had to hire a lawyer to change her family facility into a group one, something that came at a financial cost. Though she secured approval in 2021, that approval came with a caveat from the city Zoning Board of Appeals, who said that all children must be shuttled to her facility and that children under 1 year old could not be shuttled. She spent another two months contesting that stipulation so she could serve the child of an existing client.
Nichelle Waddell, who runs Watch Me Grow Daycare, plays with Christian Carrington, 1, at the daycare in Stamford, Conn., on Thursday June 16, 2022. Child care providers, like Waddell, are flush with demand, but there’s a problem for providers throughout Stamford. They argue that the local zoning process is more restrictive than the state licensing requirement.
Christian Abraham / Hearst Connecticut MediaRamos’ story follows the same arc.
For several months in 2021, she estimates she spent about $14,000 trying to clear the necessary hurdles to open a group day care in North Stamford. Like Waddell and Contreras, she already owned a family day care at the location.
The zoning application cost her $1,500. Paying an architect cost her $6,000. A traffic study and property survey cost $3,000 each. Ramos said the process was so arduous that she dropped her application after a handful of months. Her health had started to decline due to the stress, she said.
“In my case, it was (between) my health or to keep going,” she said.
The pros and cons of special permit zoning
Special permit uses like child care facilities can live and die on the basis of community support. The voices of neighbors are built into the process. This strategy is also called “conditional zoning” among professionals.
Theoretically, “conditional zoning can be a far more flexible method, where projects are evaluated on their merits and demerits,” Western Connecticut Council of Governments Executive Director Francis Pickering said. A smaller municipality with less comprehensive zoning regulations can judge proposed projects as they come without necessarily having to plan for them ahead of time, as traditional zoning could necessitate.
In that same vein, applying for special permits shouldn’t be more confusing or expensive than more traditional zoning, in Pickering’s mind. The problem, he said, stems from the “regulatory burden.” In the development process overall, the rules are more likely to weigh heavily on smaller enterprises, he explained.
The high costs don’t render the potential benefits of special permit zoning completely useless to Pickering, however. Regulatory burden can be important in urban planning. He thinks “some level of complexity is warranted because otherwise, we’ll have no protection.”
‘Waitlists for weeks’
The child care crisis in the country and in Connecticut is well-documented. The number of working child care providers has dropped precipitously since before the pandemic. Data shows 44 percent of Connecticut residents already lived in so-called “child care deserts” as of 2018, where the number of young children outstrips the number of and available spots in nearby child care facilities, according to the not-for-profit think tank Center for American Progress.
Demand is high for child care providers, especially as more and more people return to the office. For that reason alone, Waddell said, she would be in the child care business.
Gladys Contreres and her sister Dora Ramos in front of their daycare facility Thursday, December 31, 2020, in Stamford, Conn.
Erik Trautmann / Hearst Connecticut MediaWaddell, Contreras and Ramos said their determination to help families and their children figured into their decisions to run day care centers, but there’s also a matter of practicality. Business is good.
“I could have waitlists for weeks,” Waddell said. Ramos and Contreras agreed. Each woman has had to turn away potential clients over the last few years while waiting for municipal approvals to go through.
But it’s not about the waitlists, Ramos said, or about the money. Like a true educator, she says it’s about the children.
“The children have no voice,” she told the Connecticut General Assembly this year while advocating for an expansion of as-of-right group childcare. “They cannot say, ‘I really need to be in an environment where I can learn.’ Right now, educators are the voice of children and families.”
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