Posted on 03/11/2005 7:42:58 AM PST by RogerWilko
Two months after Sacramento County enacted one of the nation's most aggressive affordable housing policies, the Building Industry Association of Superior California filed Monday to scrap the plan, calling it an unfair and unnecessary tax on developers that would drive up housing prices. During the two years county officials spent drafting a plan to provide housing for the poor, building industry officials resisted the plan and tried to loosen its stringent requirements.
Affordability plan for low-income residents is called unfair tax that hurts others.
The building industry's suit filed in Sacramento Superior Court reiterates those same arguments.
"Is it fair to ask someone, because they are purchasing a home, to pay more so that someone else can buy the same home at a drastically reduced price just because they make less money?" asked Dennis Rogers, the association's senior vice president of governmental affairs and public policy. "We don't ask Raley's to sell their products at below cost and charge more to everyone else."
(Excerpt) Read more at 216.239.57.104 ...
A family of 3 with an annual income of $17,300 or less can qualify to buy a home for around $75,000 that will cost others that probably need an income of $80,000 to $100,000 per year to buy the same house, in the same neighborhood!
Yeah, that's really fair... You pay $300,000-400,000 for a home, while someone who won't even be able to come anywhere near what's needed to even upkeep the place gets to buy it for 1/4 of the price or less! Everyone else gets to pick up the slack on the lost income to the builders by paying more for their homes! Man, I sure love fairness!
People work for years to get into a decent neighborhood and now they just want to practically give homes away to people that can't afford them in the first place. I sure hope the builders win this suit... Socialism is SUCH a great thing!
Hey... Wait a minute... I've got an idea! My wife an I will quit our jobs, get part-time minimum wage jobs, qualify for a new $75,000 home, then get re-employed after we secure the home! YEAH!!
Then we'll have a $300-400,000 home with small house payments and low property tax because of Prop 13 (Can't raise your property tax more than 2% a year from purchase price!)
I knew their had to be a silver lining to this!
Here's another article on it:
This happened to us many years ago. The people who moved to their "affordable" houses never took care of them like the rest of the neighborhood (uncut grass, broke down cars etc.) Glad we got out of there when we did.
How in the world it is constitutional is beyond me.
Didn't you know that owning a home is a Constitutional right? (just like healthcare). *snicker*
Not yet, not yet.
This same dilemma was struck down in Arlington Co. Va. It was ruled unconstitutional to require developers to provide low-income housing in a very expensive county. If you can't afford an area, better look elsewhere for a home. Hell, just because I want to live in Beverly Hills doesn't mean I'm entitled to!
If this goes thru, I'd definitely make sure the neighborhood I was buying into didn't have any of this fair housing going on! Thank goodness our neighborhood is already completed with all the homes sold!
Someone needs to post these supervisor's addresses. If I were a developer, I'd give each one a crackhouse for a neighbor.
It goes well beyond the price of the home. It is doubtful that the poor will be expected to pay the same property tax rate, even though they have the same house as a middle class owner. Since the poor will be sending their kids to the schools, using the highways, depending on the fire and police services, I expect that gov't costs will rise rather sharply. This will neccessitate a rise in taxes. Paid by who? The middle class homeowner. A Liberal's Wet Dream!!!
I wonder if these same "low income" families can afford the property taxes?
Heck, why not just give everyone a Mercedes Benz or BMW and raise the minimum wage to $30 per hour!
I'd love to hear the screaming from these supervisors if one of these "fair" homes were built right next door to them! I'm sure they'd be ALL for it! Uh huh... DEFINITELY!!
The Courts have run amok!
National Headline: Wal-Mart will be the first retailer required to sell goods under the government's new "social justice in retailing" policy. Low-income customers can receive their SJ discount by checking out through specially marked register lines.
I lived in an area where the projects were torn down and Section 8 Housing was mandated. These morons devalued property and made neighborhoods worse.
Also, your taxes can't be raised more than 2% a year, I believe, because of Prop 13. Other people moving into the same neighborhood would have to pay $300-400,000 for the same home and get property taxes of $3000-4000 a year!
[Hell, just because I want to live in Beverly Hills doesn't mean I'm entitled to!]
You WANT to live in Beverly Hills?
The net result: $20,000 increase in the cost of each house to pay an upfront tax to the city. No tax increase required. You just lay out some planning rules and extort the money. That is government California-style.
DAMN, now I have to clean my keyboard off from laughing so hard!
It is so hard for me to get upset over this. I mean I paid 55 grand for my 3 bedroom tri level house on 1/3 acre 11 years ago and it is now valued at 112 grand by the state of michigan. I make a good living, and I live modestly.
I have a very hard time shedding tears for the people that purchase 200 to 250 grand houses. by the way, there are quite a number of 2500 grand to 1 million dollar home in my area. Maybe the builder should make the business decision to build 75 150 grand homes instead.
My experience is that the main reason that "affordable" houses are NOT being built in California is the power of local governments to over-regulate and delay the land development process and the power of local governments to enforce myopic building codes.
Once government defines itself as THE problem solver, government enters the business of "problem-creation".
Less freedom ==> higher costs ==> less freedom ==> etc.
Gee...
Do you think we can get the ACLU to oppose this modern-day deification of Robin Hood as a forbidden concatenation of "church" and "state"?
I saw this last night on channel three distorts (KCRA). I don't know if the article mentions it but you can get around this by paying a fee. In other words, it's extortion.
"I have a very hard time shedding tears for the people that purchase 200 to 250 grand houses."
That statement alone makes me wonder about the motivation behind your post. If the builders decide that this extra tax (lost profit) is to much to bear and decide to quite building homes, would you support the government forcing you to sell your home to "low income" family of 3?
What's the difference?
If you want a house around here, you have NO CHOICE but to pay that kind of money! Why should someone else get to pay 1/4 of the price that everyone else has to pay? Plus, the people that don't qualify for the "special" deal are gonna be the ones that end up taking up the slack for the people that can't pay.
hmmm, sounds complicated
we had a similar policy in our hometown but it was based in reality, and no subsidies
a certain percentage of all single family homes had to meet affordability criteria or you couldn't get your subdivision approved and in fact the city would actively work with developers to get affordable housing planned for, before developers even forked down their money for land, which is the way to do it, not after the developers have bought the land
the other irony this was more successful at getting affordable housing than yes you guessed it government run projects because those projects, there was always some monkey business jacking the prices up to gouge the government
free market always works best.......
at that time, affordable meant a price tag under $150,000, between $120,000 - $150,000 was what the largest group in town could afford, which at that time was the cut off, the average builder with a brain then wouldn't have priced their house over $150,000 because that is what the market could bear
anything over $150,000 would have been considered veering towards custom or high end, anything over $200,0000 you've lost most of the market, this was in early 1990's......
but for some reason the province dropped that requirement and now houses that sold for $150,000 are priced at $200,000 - $250,000 (oh I live in a small city in Southwestern Ontario, which is why the prices are so reasonable, but keep in mind the wages are in line with that, it takes a two income family here to afford a $200,000 house and or as we get here, we get a lot of retired folks from places like Toronto, who are thrilled they can buy a great house for $200,000 that would cost triple at least in Toronto and area and you get bigger lots to boot)and no people setting themselve on fire and throwing their kid off a bridge or drug dealers shooting each other up, LOL
I know lots of poor people who I'd rather pay a fee to than the govt. I'm sure deals could be cut.
Hmmm, lets see..... I'll loan you the money to buy that house. Next week, I'll buy it off of you for the same price plus 3%.
The WHOLE thing is a BAD idea all the way around and hopefully, they won't be able to get away with it!
Well you can't do that in California. The "poor" buyer of the property is only allowed to sell it to another "poor" buyer in the future. The price is not the market price. It is some calculated under-market price established to exclude the possibility of the original "poor" buyer making any money on the deal. You can imagine the complications that would set in after 5-10 years when the rules have changed and nobody is working in that Department anymore. This puts the government permanently in charge of these houses. What a mess.
Ah, No
It is your choice to live where you do. your job, yur desire for a certian standard of living, your needs.
I chose to live where i do specificly because of the cost of living here. Sure I could move 250-300 miles and make 3 times what i do, but i would be stupid to have to pay that kind of money for a home.
Get real here people, The cost of homes in CA is driven by a market place of yuppies, liberials, and illegal aliens packing together like rats on a loaf of bread. It is not the rest of the countries fault that they are dumb enough to stay there or bay the prices. As with anything else, you pay for your choices, my response is, live with.
That's not what I said... I said...
"If you want a house around here, you have NO CHOICE but to pay that kind of money"
So if you choose not to live around here, then you won't have to pay that kind of money! That doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about though... We're basically talking about why people get a free ride on other people's paychecks and get to move into neighborhoods they can't afford... in the name of "fairness"!
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