Free Republic

As California’s economy falls into a deep recession from the bursting of the global real estate bubble, it would behoove everyone to understand how local policies also contributed to the bubble in the first place. To liberals the recent real estate bubble was caused by Wall Street financial deregulation; to conservatives by over-regulation from anti-red lining lending laws of the Community Reinvestment Act which forced banks to make sub-prime loans to former renters who could not otherwise qualify for conventional loans. Both point fingers at each other over the 1999 bipartisan repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act II which separated...

Inclusionary Housing is Sociological Suicide The Pasadena Pundit - August 11, 2007 Inclusionary housing is a recipe for sociological suicide in the City of Pasadena. What is inclusionary housing? It is a law which forces every four new condo buyers or apartment renters to subsidize the price or rent of one low income housing unit in Pasadena. Developers do not pay for inclusionary housing units - they just pass through the costs to new owners and renters. Recipients of inclusionary housing are typically drawn from a pool of applicants often steered to the new inclusionary developments by the politically well-connected....

The Double Taxation Problem of Inclusionary Housing in a 'Push-Down/Pop-Up' World The Pasadena Pundit - July 27, 2007 A whole new paradigm for understanding affordable housing and homelessness in the greater Los Angeles area is needed rather than the distorted welfare-economic model propagated widely in the local media by such low income and inclusionary housing advocates as Dr. Peter Dreier, and former Mayor of Pasadena now Ventura City Manager and self-anoinited urbanologist, Rick Cole - See here: On Peter Dreier - see here: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0703-23.htm On Rick Cole - see here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-cole23jul23,0,552998.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail Historically, flophouses and cheap motels and hotels once served...

Pasadena is About to Push the Inclusionary Housing Camel's Nose Through the Back Door of the Rent Control Tent The Pasadena Pundit - June 12, 2007 http://www.pasadenanow.com Excerpt: In the next week or so the City of Pasadena will be pushing to expand its Inclusionary Housing Ordinance from new residential developments to condominium conversions of older existing apartment stock as well, mainly in the City's "urban village" core. If the City can cross the line from new housing to condominium conversions how long will it be before it can mandate the same for all existing apartment and condominium housing; or...

The Inclusionary Housing Parable of the Mayor and the Small Landowner - Whodunnit? God sent Nate to the powerful Mayor of the City of Pasquinade named Bill. When he came to the mayor he told him the following story: "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and politically powerful and the other relatively powerless and not rich. The rich and powerful mayor had a very large number of parcels of land and had the authority vested in his position to tax or take the property of others. But poor Nate had nothing much but one little parcel...

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...

Luck of the Draw or Theft of One's Neighbors Property? "Luck of draw for shelter seekers" (Pasadena Star News, July 1) depicts the luck of 160 people in a lottery for affordable units in the new upscale Trio Apartments under the City of Pasadena's Inclusionary Housing Ordinance. http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/Stories/0,1413,206~22097~2948469,00.html However, the burden of paying this invisible and unjust excise tax for these affordable units will be born by only a few of Pasadena landowners, not all the city's taxpayers or even the developers. A misconception is that it is "greedy" developers who pay for inclusionary housing programs. Nothing could be further...

Inclusionary Housing Is A Pea Shell Game by Wayne Lusvardi “Shell game. A form of the game thimblerig in which spectators bet on the final location of an object hidden under one of three walnut shells or cups that have been shuffled.” Encarta Dictionary Politics has been defined as the art of promising something for nothing and of concealing who really bears the burden of taxation. This was demonstrated recently when Bill Bogaard, the mayor of the City of Pasadena, California was quoted as praising affordable housing advocates for pushing for an amendment to the city’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance that...