Posted on 09/07/2013 7:32:12 PM PDT by NoKoolAidforMe
Do you think it is a good idea to give the Department of Housing and Urban Development unchecked power to put an apartment building in your neighborhood? HUD has proposed a new rule that could do just that.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
In July, HUD published its long-awaited proposal on "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing" in the Federal Register. It is a sweeping set of land-use regulations that has attracted little national attention. The agency wants the power to dismantle local zoning so communities have what it considers the right mix of economic, racial and ethnic diversity. A finding of discriminatory behavior, or allegations of discrimination, would no longer be necessary. HUD will supply "nationally uniform data" of what it thinks 1,200 communities should look like.
Local governments will have to "take meaningful actions to further the goals identified." If they fail to comply, HUD can cut federal funding. Westchester County north of New York City has firsthand experience of what the rest of the nation can expect.
HUD and Westchester are battling over local zoning that arose from a 2009 settlement (signed by my predecessor) to build 750 affordable-housing units in 31 mostly white communities. Westchester is well ahead of schedule in meeting these obligations. Almost 400 units have financing and 124 are already occupied. But HUD isn't satisfied because it wants to control local zoning and remake communities.
HUD has told Westchester that any limits on the size, type, height and density of buildings are "restrictive practices." It demands that the county sue its localities over such common zoning regulations, which are not exclusionary by any stretch of the imagination. If HUD can define what constitutes exclusionary practices, then local zoning as it is known today disappears. Apartments, high rises or whatever else the federal government or a developer wants can be built on any block in America.
Enlarge Image image image Getty Images/Imagezoo
This is not hyperbole. Consider that HUD's list of "restrictive practices" includes limits on density even around reservoirs that supply drinking water to New York City's eight million residents. Who knew ensuring clean water was discriminatory?
HUD's power grab is based on the mistaken belief that zoning and discrimination are the same. They are not. Zoning restricts what can be built, not who lives there.
In the 1970s, New York's highest court, in cases known as the Berenson decisions, established rules for what constitutes exclusionary zoning. Westchester's municipalities either voluntarily or through legal challenges have complied with these judicial rules. Any local zoning code also remains open to legal challenge. There are long-standing legal standards by which local zoning is judged and continually reviewed.
As required by HUD, Westchester County analyzed all 853 local zoning districts in February 2012. It found no evidence of exclusionary practices based on race or ethnicity. The county's conclusion was supported in a separate analysis by John R. Nolon, an affordable-housing expert at Pace University's Land Use Law Center.
HUD rejected the findings and cut off $17 million of federal funds to the county. The county prepared seven additional analyses, each one exploring more data as demanded by HUD. But as many times as HUD attempted to move the goal posts, the findings did not change. There is no evidence that zoning requirements on things like building size and height are racially exclusionary.
Last month HUD finally demanded—without presenting any facts—that the county accept its conclusion that there is exclusionary zoning in Westchester as a condition of releasing the funds. The agency's demand flies in the face of the July 31 "report card" issued by James E. Johnson, the federal monitor hired by HUD to oversee its 2009 affordable housing settlement. Mr. Johnson found no evidence of exclusionary zoning based on race or ethnicity.
Westchester is proudly the fourth most diverse county in New York in its population of African-Americans and Hispanics. Hispanics are the county's fastest-growing ethnic group, increasing in every community in the last census. The number of African-Americans continues to grow in contrast to an exodus from many areas in the Northeast. But HUD won't budge. Its vision for remaking neighborhoods depends on gaining control of local zoning.
The $17 million that HUD is withholding include Community Development Block Grants to help needy residents with neighborhood revitalization, new playgrounds and sidewalks, programs to prevent homelessness and, ironically, affordable housing. Westchester has sued the federal government to release these funds. Our claim is that HUD is unfairly holding hostage the communities and nonprofit agencies that administer those programs in its fight with the county. A federal judge dismissed Westchester's claim last month, saying HUD's ruling was written in a way that "excludes it from judicial review." The lawsuit is now before the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
HUD has no idea how much its new rule will cost, or whether it will even work. The only economic analysis HUD has provided concerns how much it will cost communities to comply with the paperwork. HUD estimates $3 million to $9 million. The agency has not published any estimate of other effects, such as on local real-estate markets or local budgets. As stated in the Federal Register, "HUD cannot quantify the benefits and costs of policies influenced by the rule."
HUD is asking for comments on its new rule by Sept. 17. If elected officials and citizens do not want to cede control of their streets, neighborhoods and open space to Washington, now is the time to say so.
Mr. Astorino is the Westchester County executive.
Westchester has been the Petri dish for this experiment for some time now.
I sometimes wonder if the racial makeup of HUD “looks like America” — or if they’re about 40% black — unlike America.
Most govt agencies are about 80% ‘diverse’.
If white America learned to pick their own cotton 200+ years ago we will not be having this problem.
They do seem to speak another language...
Perhaps I’m wrong and if I am, I do apologize but if you wish to keep the Feds out of your business then stop asking for and taking their money. Once you start taking their money, you become dependent on that money, and it gives Federal agencies the power to force or try and force you to do exactly what they want. If you won’t comply, they’ll stop providing the money.
States, counties, cities all need to give the Feds the finger and find a way to break the addiction to Federal funds.
Yep, importing slaves from Africa was one of the stupidest things we as a nation have ever done.
And we’re paying for it now.
Boy, are we.
As a service disabled vet my business qualifies for minority owned business set asides.
Most govt reps in this area seem to be black women.
At conferences they dont even stop to talk to this white male.
The answer is to stop sending money to the feds, not send it and forget about it.
The Feds can build their feral breeding reactors 50 miles out of town in the middle of the wheat fields.
Destruction of your community coming to you. This kind of central planning always ends bad.
Unfortunately, most of us don’t send money to the Feds voluntarily but instead it is simply taken from us with every paycheck.
This settlement stems from a lawsuit brought by HUD against Westchester because Westchester took money from the feds and did not use it for the intended purpose. This was under the prior county executive’s administration. The settlement forced Westchester to build low-income housing in what HUD perceived to be the ‘whitest’ towns in the county. But not next to Bill and Hillary’s house in Chappaqua. Now, the county is trying to avoid suing its own municipalities which could conceivable bankrupt the towns.
I agree with you about taking federal and state money (it always comes with strings), but unfortunately, most of what the county spends its budget on are federal and state mandates that it cannot refuse to pay i.e., Medicaid, food stamps, pension payments, etc.
California already does this. They just made Diamond Bar, a bedroom community (and republican stronghold) in the hills east of LA add a 30 unit/acre low income housing complex even though the city was officially “built out”.
Luckily, I live on the other end of the city, as this is gonna bring in the riff raff.
There is a connection to this HUD policy and to the Zimmerman eposode
When it was the second time the President of the United States had interjected himself into a confrontation between those in authority on legal grounds reasonably questioned and released someone involved in a curious activity. This time in a privately owned patrolled area. What was driving this attitude ?
Could this reasoning be based from the idealized communist concept that there is no such thing as “private” property because the state (collective) owns the land ? http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3042477/posts and was the primary purpose of selecting this episode to paint a target on Zimmerman’s back http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3054815/posts
It seems Zimmerman was to be the egg that is to be broken,. sacrificed, so that we have an omlet which follows tactics advocated by socialist adhearants...Just like Stalin did to the Ukrainian land owners known as Kulacks whom he executed, (and used that egg example) in a soclal engineering plan to organize collectives during a Russian drought..
Because as we have learned there seems to be the intention to use a collective data base to create collectives.where a utopia of uniforimity of conformity exists. As was done in Detroit, and Oakland California.only this time a poor whitey or blacky won’t be able to move. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3053314/posts.
Just as with the energy plan where the cost of fuel used for energy and transportation and that includes raising the price of transporting gas and oil by rail, that favors a key contributer (Buffett) while the regime has been recently ridiculing the impact the completion of a pipeline, has skyrocketed those costs.
Placing many on fixed or limited incomes dependent on government handouts. Resulting from this regimes socialist policies which go blameless. Now call for the sacrifice of Zimmerman who must die for another communist plan.. We all move together in centers designed and approved by comrades running the collective who (just like Obamacare aren’t in it) won’t ever live there.
The counties an municipalities need to start ignoring these fascist dictates from the Feds.
I’m fully supportive of section 8 and other schemes like this if they are implemented in places like Martha’s Vinyard, and whatever the place the Clinton’s supposedly live in.
ping
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.