Monday, May 6, 2019

Exclusionary Zoning is Socialist



Well, yes, it is--but. The issue is what we in NJ have come to call Mount Laurel, the town whose restrictive zoning practices led to a state Supreme Court ruling that required every town to provide for its “fair share” of “affordable housing” through its zoning policies. That ruling dealt with a legitimate injustice, but danced around the basic issue--property rights (See my NJ's "Affordable Housing Crisis" - It's the Zoning, Stupid!).

This editorial is an interesting twisting of language, and points up the importance of properly defining our terms. “This isn’t magic,” writes the Star-Ledger:

It’s exclusionary zoning laws. It’s keeping housing values high and property taxes artificially low, by using home rule powers for selfish financial goals. It’s zoning out anything that doesn’t provide big revenue – the schoolchildren-breeding, communist rabble.

Such abuses over the past few decades have forced other towns in this county to shoulder greater expenses. This was why Mount Laurel was needed, a landmark decision against discriminatory zoning practices that towns long used to welcome the wealthy and keep out the poor.

Now, state rules require municipalities to build their fair share of affordable housing, pushing back against enclaves of affluence and opportunity hoarding, in which to send your kid to the best public schools, you have to buy an expensive house.

The mayor calls the state’s interference in its zoning policies “socialistic”--a complete inversion of the truth. What is socialist is this from the Star-Ledger:

If you work hard, you should be able to afford a home; it’s the American Dream. Yet thanks to growing income inequality, the path to the middle class is much harder to climb today than it was decades ago.

I posted these comments, edited:

Socialism is the subordination of the individual to the group (collectivism) imposed through governmental force by all-powerful central planners (totalitarianism), and geared to a collective moral vision of how socierty should be “shaped.”. What is not socialist is builders building housing on their own land for sale to willing consumers at mutually agreed pricing. Zoning boards refusing to grant permission for such housing, allegedly in the “interests” of “the community,” are mini-socialist dictatorships. There could be valid concerns about development, such as substandard roads or stormwater runoff, that can justify stopping a development unless these concerns are mitigated. But exclusionary zoning is legalized discrimination; i.e., mini-socialism.

Of course, it’s ridiculous to say “If you work hard, you should be able to afford a home.”  The wealth one earns is determined by how much economic value one creates as determined by how much or how many others are willing to pay for it. Hard work is important. But it is not the determining factor. The American Dream is the freedom to work and trade and keep what you have earned. It is not an automatic guarantee that someone will provide you with a home you can afford.

But if someone is willing to build you that home, some zoning board should not have the power to stop them.

The Mount Laurel ruling attempted to correct wrongful exclusionary zoning policies, thereby replacing local mandates with state mandates. There should be no mandates. And none would be required if property rights were respected in this state.

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