Posted on 07/29/2015 1:06:44 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Edited on 07/29/2015 3:48:56 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
Hillary Clinton’s suburban hometown of Chappaqua, New York has just become ground zero in the Obama administration’s efforts to nullify local control over America’s housing. Obama’s Justice Department has fired a powerful warning shot at Westchester County, New York, where the administration is conducting a dry run of its new Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation.
At issue is whether Westchester’s obligation to “affirmatively further fair housing” compels county officials to crush local opposition to a low-income housing development in downtown Chappaqua.
The Draconian legal settlement imposed on Westchester several years ago by the Obama administration creates a court-appointed “monitor” who has effectively usurped Westchester County’s right to democratic self-governance. The monitor insists, and Obama’s Department of Justice agrees, that Westchester County officials must not only obtain financing for new low-income housing developments in Chappaqua, but must suppress local opposition to the project.
Justice Department officials have just asked a court to impose massive fines if Westchester officials don’t compel the local town council to approve a low-income housing development in Chappaqua. Westchester officials are to be forced to put a letter endorsing the Chappaqua project on the county’s website, and to publish the same letter in the Sunday edition of the local paper. Westchester County is further instructed to write monthly letters to the town of New Castle inquiring after the status of the Chappaqua project and asking why approvals haven’t been granted. County officials are also to be forced to attend all local public hearings regarding the project. In other words, In order to force federal diktat on Hillary’s hometown, the elected officials of Westchester County are to be turned into puppets of the Obama administration. And if Westchester and New Castle/Chappaqua don’t give in, the massive and ever-increasing fines paid by the county are to be used to build even more low-income housing in the area.
Ned McCormack, a spokesman for Westchester’s Republican County Executive Rob Astorino, rightly says, “The [Department of Justice]’s position seems to be that democracy and due process don’t apply when it comes to Westchester’s housing settlement.” McCormack then adds, “This behavior appears to be a harbinger for what the rest of the nation can expect under HUD’s new Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rules.”
Exactly. The intrusive questionnaire that local officials applying for HUD funding have to fill out under AFFH asks them to identify any local opposition to low income housing projects. These filings could then be used to hold federal funds hostage, or perhaps to file suits against localities like the one the feds have pressed against Westchester. In other words, AFFH comes close to institutionalizing the idea that local government officials must treat their own constituents as a kind of illegitimate opposition to be overcome.
With Chappaqua now the epicenter of opposition to the Obama administration’s controversial housing policies, it now becomes incumbent on reporters to put several questions to Hillary Clinton. Does Hillary Clinton favor the low-income housing project under debate in Chappaqua? Does Hillary Clinton see the Obama administration’s orders against the leaders of Westchester County as a legitimate use of federal authority? Does Hillary Clinton support the Obama administration’s new rule on Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing?
Forced integration of populations in housing, because it worked so well with school bussing. (sarcasm)
Is desegregation dead? - San Francisco gives parents a say in where their children go to school — and that is leading to less diversity
San Francisco gives parents a say in where their children go to school — and that is leading to less diversity
[snip]
A federal judge ordered desegregation, and in 1971 San Francisco put children on buses that crisscrossed the city so they could be in multiracial schools.
The plan almost immediately ended racial isolation — but it also helped drive families out of the district and into the suburbs or into private schools. Many Chinese families resisted integration, boycotting district public schools and creating their own private “freedom schools” for their children instead.
From the 1960s to 1983, the school district enrollment plunged by 32,000 students.
Vying factions of parents filed lawsuits, and the district tried several different school assignment methods. A federal judge oversaw those efforts from 1983 to 2005, but eventually gave up and called the district’s attempts at diversification a failure. This handed control of the assignment system back to the school district...
[snip]
“If the school reflects the community, it’s not necessarily a problem,” he said. “It’s absolutely about every student being successful at every school.”
Sanchez and Van Court are not alone. Even the African American community, the force behind the historical desegregation efforts, has fallen silent.
“We really don’t have any public demand for this,” State Board of Education President Mike Kirst said about desegregation. “The courts, of course, have largely retreated in this area. And I feel no bottom-up demand for this.”
But just because everybody’s OK with the status quo doesn’t mean it’s right, said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA....."
How a Seattle Plan to End Single-Family Zoning Could Change Affordable Housing
Some of the proposed tools are untested, some are best practices. Together, they would set the city on the progressive edge.
Kriston Capps
Jul 13, 2015
The 28-member committee—planners, business owners, architects, advocates, and other people in housing, right down to the tenants—even fingers how race and class discrimination have guided the history of single-family zoning. This is the purpose of single-family housing: to keep poor people and people of color out of white, wealthy neighborhoods by erecting high barriers to entry. The Seattle committee recommends that the city take those barriers down by replacing “single-family zones” with “low-density residential zones” and upzoning practically everywhere else.
That is a solution that is so clear and sensible that it’s dangerous.
The formal proposal released by Mayor Murray today is lighter on theory and details, but it gives a broader account of the mayor’s plans for affordable housing. Seattle can build or preserve 50,000 new units of housing over the next decade, with almost half (20,000 units) designated affordable.
That’s a reasonable goal. But it’s clear from the mayor’s proposal that he isn’t merely looking to expand affordable housing. Mayor Murray and his City Council allies want to build fairly. Seattle could get housing that is fundamentally just, and that’s something we haven’t seen in any city anywhere.
Use property taxes to promote affordable housing
Mayor Murray proposes to double Seattle’s housing levy—to $290 million—in order to build affordable housing. He also proposes a 0.25 percent tax on real-estate transfers in the hopes of capturing some of the value from rising land prices and redirecting it toward affordable housing. The mayor also calls for an expansion of the multifamily property tax exemption.
Reform parking and preservation requirements
Historic review and design review are important tools for protecting the culture and texture of a city, but yeesh, these tools can be a NIMBY’s deadliest weapon. Seattle’s already done the hard work of eliminating parking minimums from its urban centers and urban villages, so the mayor’s goal is to remove parking requirements beyond these areas.
Three mantras for building: taller, denser, more inclusive
Mayor Murray cannot eliminate single-family housing in one fell swoop. He would be chased out of town with pitchforks and torches.
But enabling low-density housing throughout most of Seattle (rowhouses, duplexes, triplexes, courtyard housing, and so on) is a start. The proposal also calls for taller height limits and relaxed building and fire codes to encourage denser wood-frame multifamily construction. Mandatory inclusionary housing plus upzoning to make room for these requirements is part of the mayor’s package.
SNIP
It’s crazy. Bring in the high-density low income housing anywhere and the inner city’s problems will come with it. The answer is JOBS, and the solution is less competition from invader labor and bringing manufacturing back to the US.
Translation: Just because everyone disagrees with me doesn't mean I'm wrong. I know what's best for you better than you do yourselves!
Exactly.
bttt
Spot on. The Vision of the Anointed, to bring a useful Sowell book into the conversation.
Westchester County is getting the social engineering they consistently vote for. They should be ecstatic.
People hated forced busing, but home schooling and private schooling and finagling public school admissions provided some immediate relief.
Plopping a small inner city housing project in the middle of a middle class neighborhood has no immediate relief but moving, and given the 50K drop in property values for the neighbors, that becomes much harder.
And since the White House wants this national, there then really isn’t “relief”, only less affected areas.
“They’re getting roughed up for it out there. It isn’t worth it.”
Darn those pesky citizens. If only they would get out of the way and let us politicians re-arrange things in a “progressive” way.
I know!
There ought to be a law.....
Nobody has thought this through. Public transportation will have to be provided. Services are going to have to be accessible. With high density housing, there are going to be more people out in the streets and on sidewalks, which means increased demands on police and other public safety. What about the increased need for sewer lines? The damage that will be done to roadways? Getting to the movies and other recreation?
This will be an irreversible disaster.
“...to encourage denser wood-frame multifamily construction. “
Just what is needed in a hilly, earthquake-prone area (cf. San Francisco, 1906).
Agenda 21 Ping
(Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)
Related:
Single-family housing is an ecological disaster and Seattle’s mayor was right then, wrong now
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3318410/posts
This is all BS covering agenda 21 with racism. Seattle doesn’t have blacks.
Third world cities.
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