Posted on 04/12/2012 3:27:11 PM PDT by robowombat
California Declares War on Detached Homes WRITTEN BY RAVEN CLABOUGH WEDNESDAY, 11 APRIL 2012 15:36
In its ongoing move to establish a full nanny state, the state of California has passed laws intended to minimize car use and carbon dioxide emissions. Those laws are now leading to policies that permit the state to mandate that up to 30 homes may be built on a single acre of land, in an effort to assuage concerns by climate-change advocates that humans are taking up too much space.
“Metropolitan area governments are adopting plans that would require most new housing to be built at 20 or more to the acre, which is at least five times the traditional quarter acre per house. State and regional planners also seek to radically restructure urban areas, forcing much of the new hyperdensity development into narrowly confined corridors,” reported the Wall Street Journal.
Currently, in five southern California counties, as well as in some areas of Los Angeles County, 30 houses per acre is being mandated. Advocates of this mandate contend that such actions fall under the same laws that were passed to cut vehicle usage and limit carbon dioxide emissions, including the 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act and the 2008 Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act.
WSJ explains,“The campaign against suburbia is the result of laws passed in 2006 (the Global Warming Solutions Act) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and in 2008 (the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act) on urban planning. The latter law, as the Los Angeles Times aptly characterized it, was intended to "control suburban sprawl, build homes closer to downtown and reduce commuter driving, thus decreasing climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions." In short, to discourage automobile use.
Transportation consultant Wendell Cox admitted that the ultimate goal of the 30 homes per acre is to make construction of detached houses “illegal.”
Not only will California’s new housing rules bring about an increase in condos and apartment complexes and a significant decrease in detached homes, but would also drive up the cost of California’s already unaffordable housing. California’s housing became increasingly unaffordable, notes Dartmouth economist William Fischel, after California began to impose restrictive regulations, such as development moratoria, urban growth boundaries, and impact fees. Stephen Malpezzi of the University of Wisconsin also notes a relationship between extreme land-use regulations and expensive house prices.
California’s new housing policy fits right in to the eco-fascist agenda as laid out during the “Planet Under Pressure” conference in London, where climate-change alarmists unveiled their intent to minimize the amount of space humans utilize on the planet, leaving the rest to nature. Scientists at the conference called for denser cities in order to minimize global population growth.
The conference was cosponsored by NASA and UNEP. Its chief scientist, Michail Fragkias, said, “If cities can develop in height rather than in width that would be much more preferable and environmentally not as harmful.”
“Planet Under Pressure” attendee and Yale University professor Karen Seto told MSNBC, “We certainly don’t want [humans] strolling about the entire countryside. We want them to save land for nature by living closely together.”
The call for compact cities to stifle population growth has increased significantly since the inception of a new era in planetary history, called Anthropocene, described as a new geological era in which humans are the drivers of geological and meteorological processes. Scientists have used the Anthropocene to call for an end to human population growth.
Martin Rees of the Royal Society stated at the conference,“This century is special in the Earth’s history. It is the first when one species — ours — has the planet’s future in its hands. We’ve invented a new geological era: the Anthropocene.”
Also appearing at the Planet under Pressure conference was Professor Kari Norgaard, who published a paper that stated global-warming skeptics should be “treated” for a mental disorder. Norgaard’s paper went so far as to compare climate-change skeptics to racists.
Norgaard also wrote a letter to President Obama urging him to suspend democracy and push through climate-change mandates by way of executive fiat.
Furthermore, California’s environmental efforts fall under the type of policies set forth by the United Nations’ Agenda 21 project, which mandates that all member states participate in “sustainable development” policies.
Agenda 21 is defined by the United Nations as a “comprehensive plan for action to be taken globally, nationally, and locally by organizations of the United Nations system, governments and major groups in every area in which humans impact the environment.”
The New American’s William Jasper wrote of Agenda 21 in February, explaining that the plan is virtually all-encompassing:
The UN’s Agenda 21 is definitely comprehensive and global — breathtakingly so. Agenda 21 proposes a global regime that will monitor, oversee, and strictly regulate our planet’s oceans, lakes, streams, rivers, aquifers, sea beds, coastlands, wetlands, forests, jungles, grasslands, farmland, deserts, tundra, and mountains. It even has a whole section on regulating and “protecting” the atmosphere. It proposes plans for cities, towns, suburbs, villages, and rural areas. It envisions a global scheme for healthcare, education, nutrition, agriculture, labor, production, and consumption — in short, everything; there is nothing on, in, over, or under the Earth that doesn’t fall within the purview of some part of Agenda 21.
The American Policy Center made a similar assertion in its analysis of Agenda 21:
According to its authors, the objective of sustainable development is to integrate economic, social and environmental policies in order to achieve reduced consumption, social equity, and the preservation and restoration of biodiversity. Sustainablists insist that every societal decision be based on environmental impact, focusing on three components; global land use, global education, and global population control and reduction.
Section 1 of the plan outlines the social and economic dimensions, i.e. social justice, which focuses on the redistribution of wealth, changing consumption patterns, changed population and usstainable settling.
Agenda 21 is rooted in the writings of Gro Harlem Brundtland, vice president of the World Socialist Party. Brundtland has connections to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Maurice Strong, the architect of the Kyoto protocol.
Agenda 21 is also supported by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), which garners funds from George Soros’ Open Society Institute. Soros’ Center for American Progress, Van Jones’ Green for All, and the Apollo Alliance, part of the TIDES Foundations, are also ICLEI partners.
Conservative pundit Glenn Beck examined Agenda 21 in one of the final episodes of his popular Fox News program and concluded that after reading through the entire document outlining Agenda 21, “Sustainable development is just a really nice way of saying centralized control over all human life on earth.”
One of the authors of Agenda 21 has even admitted, “Agenda 21 proposes an array of actions which are intended to be implemented by every person on earth…. It calls for specific changes in the activities of all people…. Effective execution of Agenda 21 will require a profound reorientation of all humans, unlike anything the world has ever experienced.”
Beck observed, “This is a massive movement, and its real intentions are being masked with environmental issues. This structure was set up by those who want to set up a global government system. They wanted to set this structure up years ago.”
The state of California appears all too happy to comply.
Hey, stop posting pictures of Bill Clinton’s childhood home! Even ex-presidents are entitled to some privacy!
They're Chinese, not stupid.
Then you'll get an R-5 built as R-8, which consolidates some of the land in a development as "common land", and maybe a park with a pool or something.
But R-30?
Don't think I've ever seen that one, but I have seen FAR 1, and FAR 2, and FAR 3, and on up. That's "Floor Area Ratio", and how many acres of floor space acceptable per 1 acre of land.
With your typical house having a footprint of 24X40 to 24X60, that R-30 zoning is more likely an FAR 3, with a small setback (open land around the structures).
That'd be pretty much like what we call Garden Apartments in the Eastern States and Florida Apartments in California.
BTW, the old Florida Apartments/Condos in California have been going the way of the dodo as they are taken down and replaced with 5 story buildings with elevators and separate parking. In the East they've been taking down older 5 story walk ups and replacing them with 3 story Florida Apartments (usually called LUXURY TOWNHOMES WITH GARAGE).
Overhanging all California residential development is the need to make buildings earthquake resistant. Consequently, depending on relative distance from a slip fault (and CA has lots of slip faults ~ many beaucoup) it may or may not be feasible to build above 1 story, or maybe 2, with affordable structures.
For most of the state it's not wise to go up more than 5 stories ~ end of that story. They do go up higher, but you should see the cost!
It was either this, or control immigration.
Scotts objects.
The rats have been trying to cram people into concentrated Democrat parasite nests (”cities”) for at least three decades. They just love “mass transit”. Can you imagine having to depend on those smelly city buses to go anywhere?
Impose it on $10 million homes in Hollywood and Malibu first, and see how that goes.
It’s amazing what these clowns will do to try to justify their dreams of “high speed rail”
Say what you will about Art Bell, George Noory and Coast-to-Coast AM, they've referenced aspects of this for years...and are usually derided as kooks.
California is approaching 4% development.
North Dakota is actually more developed than that.
There’s a reason for that.
Virginia, which has been undergoing development for a very long time, is at roughly 4%.
If you think about it, we don't even OWN our property ... we rent it from the government at the cost of property taxes. If you don't pay your annual 'rent' the government can take away what you 'own.'
The United States is in the process of becoming the “Detroit” of nations. Obiwant is proud.
We beat back an effort by our rural town government to rezone our neighborhood from half acre lots to quarter acre lots. Reason given at a public meeting: We would do better not having to mow or shovel so much.
We had been tipped off to attend the planning board meetings. It was an eyeopener, and well worth the time.
Thanks for the ping!
I remember you telling me about that!
I can’t imagine 30 homes on one acre of land, not even if they were one room homes!! More people will be leaving California, many have come to Texas. I’ve got about 30 miles of mostly unpopulated land in all directions from my town to the next town.
I once had a map that showed the vast unpopulated areas of the United States. I could probably find it on Google again.
ahahah - I remember this pic. I love it.
HOWEVER, let’s not get that around - the Agenda 21 folk just might think that’s the ticket...
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.