Push for High-Density Housing Rooted in Racial and Environmental Agendas
Observation: As move government-controlled high-density housing is brought into the suburbs, not only will density increase, but demographics will change. Suburbs, formerly strongholds of conservativism, will be increasingly populated with those who receive government handouts and support, who in turn vote for Democrat party that provides them freebies. Indeed, it seems that a major objective of densifying the suburbs is to nullify their inherent conservative bias.
Excerpts from the article follow:
The Biden administration is encouraging local municipalities across the nation to change zoning rules to create higher-density neighborhoods. The plan has elements of the racial and environmental agendas Biden has been advancing on most fronts.
The Housing Supply Action Plan, announced in May, aims to ease housing costs by increasing the housing supply in every community....
Under the plan, the administration will pressure jurisdictions to rewrite zoning and land-use policies to increase density, by tying federal grant applications to zoning....
Connecting Zoning to Racism and Climate
Zoning laws are intertwined with climate change and racial justice, according to Sara Bronin, a professor at Cornell University’s Department of City and Regional Planning... Bronin advocates for government-owned, multi-family housing buildings that would cut down greenhouse gas emissions by minimizing car use....
Move to Government-Owned Housing
... Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center and an advocate of individual liberty and property rights, cautions that this “smart growth” is a political agenda designed to control people.
Biden’s plan encourages construction of more multi-family homes, including duplexes, townhomes, and apartments. DeWeese says environmentalists want people living in closer quarters, using less land.
“If they get you living in a high-rise apartment instead of in your own single-family neighborhood, they can control your transportation—where you go....
“People living in single-family homes and people living in rural areas are both independent people, “ DeWeese said. “These create the middle class. And if people are independent, they’re independent of [government] control. You have to look at this as to, who is doing this and what their motivation is. We’re dealing with people working on government control in every aspect of our lives. Radical statement, I understand. Prove me wrong.”
Perspective
Suburbs are predominantly conservative and Republican. One way the Democrat party can change this voting pattern is to prohibit land use restrictions and override zoning restrictions in suburban cities, thus allowing for densification. In other words, change the demographics by increasing housing density, building subsidized housing in urban areas, and bringing in a democrat-voting demographic.
The first step in this direction is to curtail the ability of cities to establish their own land-use policies.
Do you want a park in your neighborhood? Sorry, it will be turned into low-rent multiple unit dwellings. You won't have a say.
Related
How Biden Regime's Housing Plans Would Destroy America’s Suburbs, The Federalist, 19 June 2022:
... In 2015, President Barack Obama’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a regulation known as Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH). The administration claimed it issued the rule to combat “housing segregation” in suburbs, despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968 already outlawing discriminatory housing practices.
According to the New York Post, had the regulation been successfully implemented nationwide, localities across the country would have had to “scrap zoning, build bigger water and sewer lines to support high-density living, expand schools and social services and add mass transit. All pushing up local taxes.” In essence, virtually all control regarding local governance would be outsourced to the federal government....
Biden, however, has signed on to a proposal by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., that would effectively withhold federal transportation grants, used to build and repair highways, unless communities sign on to AFFH. It would be almost impossible for many communities to decline this funding for critical infrastructure, handing over America’s suburbs to the federal government....
Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, recently spoke in an interview with Mark Levin about how a Biden presidency would effectively abolish America’s suburbs as we know them. “It would allow bureaucrats in Washington, in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to control zoning laws, to control the placement of transportation and business districts, even to some degree the drawing of school districts,” Kurtz said. “In other words, almost every important local governmental responsibility could, under AFFH, fall into the de facto control of the feds.”....
The Trump administration officially discarded the rule in July, arguing the regulation was a blatant power grab by the federal government....
HUD's War On The Suburbs. The Trump administration officially discarded the rule in July, arguing the regulation was a blatant power grab by the federal government. Created during the Obama regime. Good background information:
Thank You Mark Levin; not a Conservative nor a Liberal Issue Mark, thank you for your “Blast” on July 20 about “Obama’s Race Database”. That blast inspired me to create this www.affh.net website about the new HUD Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, AFFH, rule. In addition to alerting a number of local conservatives, two days ago the website provided a pathway and links (under HUD Friendlies) for acquiring the necessary HUD information to the Castle Rock, CO, town council for them to vote 5 to 1 against accepting HUD Community Development Block Grant, CDBG, funds.
Podcast: Mark Levin blasts Obama’s race database as part of our growing police state, Right Scoop, 20 July 2015.
Invasive land use bill facing fierce opposition from mountain communities, by Ali Longwell, Vail Daily, 4 April 2023.
Colorado governor, Democrats: limit construction of accessory-dwelling units, duplexes and triplexes, by Jesse Paul and Elliott Wenzler, Colorado Sun, 23 March 2023.
California sues Huntington Beach over failure to follow housing laws in warning to other cities, by Marisa Kendall, Mercury News, 6 April 2023.