Washington's 'Fair Housing' Assault on Local Zoning

[ScreamingEagle]

you can bet the 'community organizer' is behind this....more Big Government pushing to control you at the local level.....

Do you think it is a good idea to give the Department of Housing and Urban Development unchecked power to put an apartment building in your neighborhood? HUD has proposed a new rule that could do just that.

In July, HUD published its long-awaited proposal on "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing" in the Federal Register. It is a sweeping set of land-use regulations that has attracted little national attention. The agency wants the power to dismantle local zoning so communities have what it considers the right mix of economic, racial and ethnic diversity. A finding of discriminatory behavior, or allegations of discrimination, would no longer be necessary. HUD will supply "nationally uniform data" of what it thinks 1,200 communities should look like.

Local governments will have to "take meaningful actions to further the goals identified." If they fail to comply, HUD can cut federal funding. Westchester County north of New York City has firsthand experience of what the rest of the nation can expect.

HUD and Westchester are battling over local zoning that arose from a 2009 settlement (signed by my predecessor) to build 750 affordable-housing units in 31 mostly white communities. Westchester is well ahead of schedule in meeting these obligations. Almost 400 units have financing and 124 are already occupied. But HUD isn't satisfied because it wants to control local zoning and remake communities.

HUD has told Westchester that any limits on the size, type, height and density of buildings are "restrictive practices." It demands that the county sue its localities over such common zoning regulations, which are not exclusionary by any stretch of the imagination. If HUD can define what constitutes exclusionary practices, then local zoning as it is known today disappears. Apartments, high rises or whatever else the federal government or a developer wants can be built on any block in America.

This is not hyperbole. Consider that HUD's list of "restrictive practices" includes limits on density even around reservoirs that supply drinking water to New York City's eight million residents. Who knew ensuring clean water was discriminatory?

HUD's power grab is based on the mistaken belief that zoning and discrimination are the same. They are not. Zoning restricts what can be built, not who lives there.

continued...
Robert Astorino: Washington's 'Fair Housing' Assault on Local Zoning - WSJ.com

 

[g5000]

The author of the piece is in Westchester County, New York which has just had $17 million of federal funds withheld by HUD.

This is how the federal government gets local powers to do the federal government's bidding; the power of federal financial dependency.

According to a set of rules issued in 1996 by HUD, local communites are supposed to conduct an Analsyis of Impediment to determine if they have fair housing.

HUD has not been very good at enforcing these rules and has been inconsistent in its application, as well.

Now they are saying the 1996 rules have holes in them, and they want to add additional requirements to the AI rules. The reason they believe the rules have holes in them is because minorities are still not evenly spread out in America. HUD suspects this is because of some kind of innate prejudice in zoning laws, if you can buh-leed dat! They are operating on what sounds to me like an entirely false premise which has no basis in common sense whatsoever.

Show me minorities who have the money are not able to buy houses wherever they wish. That should be the standard of evidence.


HUD is claiming Westchester County did not "analyze race in its study of impediments to fair housing", and that is why it is holding back $17 million.

You can read some background and the actual rule proposals here:

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/07/19/2013-16751/affirmatively-furthering-fair-housing

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Proposed Rule | HUD USER

HUD proposes new rule for Fair Housing Act - Politics on the Hudson