It is found and declared that improvement of the conditions and quality of urban life is one of the most serious responsibilities facing this state. The persistence of slums and blight; the critical need for additional and improved housing and community facilities and services arising from rapid expansion of the state's urban population; the inadequacy of sites for industrial and commercial growth; the concentration of persons of low income in the older urban areas of the state; the persistence of poverty, unemployment, underemployment, educational deprivation, crime and delinquency, and physical and mental illness; all these have resulted in a marked deterioration of the quality of the environment and the lives of large numbers of Connecticut citizens, while the state as a whole prospers. It is further found and declared that the municipalities of this state do not have adequate resources to deal effectively with these physical, economic, and human resource problems and that financial and technical assistance by the state, in addition to that now authorized, and the granting of new powers and authority to municipalities, are essential to enable the municipalities to plan, develop and conduct physical, economic and human resource programs for effective community development. It is further found and declared that the accomplishment of these objectives requires effective concentration and coordination of federal, state, regional and local public and private efforts and resources and that such concentration and coordination of efforts can best be achieved through the creation of an Office of Policy and Management.

(1967, P.A. 522, S. 1; P.A. 77-614, S. 590, 609, 610; P.A. 78-303, S. 119, 136.)

History: P.A. 77-614 substituted office of policy and management for department of community affairs, effective January 1, 1979, and in Sec. 609 repealed section; P.A. 78-303 removed section from repeal provision in Sec. 609 of P.A. 77-614.