Free Republic

Economist Tom Sowell once aptly wrote that “there are no solutions; there are only tradeoffs.” This can be no better seen than in the recent enactment of California Senate Bill 375 which will unknowingly trade precious groundwater resources for “Smart Growth” anti-urban sprawl policies. Under this legislation water will no longer be gold in California ; ethereal concepts about reducing “global warming” and producing “green power” will be California ’s new fools gold. It is little wonder that California is experiencing a “perfect drought” with the adoption of such policies. SB 375 is a piece of legislation which requires regional...

Expanding inclusionary housing to small landowners is "dumb growth" for everyone "As night follows day, every clever government intervention will invite multiple private responses, which are certain to undo whatever good might come about." - Richard Epstein, Markets Under Siege, 2005. Capitulating to affordable housing advocates, the City of Pasadena, California, is about to be one of the first cities to expand its inclusionary housing ordinance to small properties where only 5 to 9 units of new apartment housing can be built. Apparently, public officials and housing advocates do not realize that expanding the inclusionary housing law will produce no...

Fighting to keep EcoGroup from building a tall condo by Wiggins Pass is just the beginning of a local group’s battle to preserve land in northwestern Collier County. North Bay Civic Association plans to embark on new territory in Collier County. It wants to be the first civic group to fight for an area to become a Natural Resource Protection Area, also known as NRPA. The group is asking the county to designate wetlands and adjacent uplands that stretch four miles along the northwestern-most coast of Collier County as a NRPA. A NRPA is part of the county’s comprehensive growth...