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If a local government wants affordable housing, then some developers argue that the government should buy the land and build affordable homes, not expect developers to build them.
What do you think is fair?
Is there profit to be made?
If so, why wouldn’t the developers want to do it?
If not, can the government force them to? I doubt it.
Local government can force it by refusing to grant a zoning variance unless the developer agrees to offer low-cost housing. The developer agrees to it since he still makes an overall profit even though he makes less of a profit on the low cost portion.
Joseph, and what if no variance is required? If zoning allows an apartment building , you don’t need a variance for luxury housing. Laws requiring rent control actually discourage affordable housing.
The whole problem is zoning laws that prevent building towers where the cost of land can be divided among many apartments. In NYC you can add rent control, which discourages private building, and the Landmarks Preservation Commission that takes whole neighborhoods off the development table. More cronyism. An alternate solution would be widening telework so that people could live in areas where housing is cheap.
If zoning allows an apartment building , you don’t need a variance for luxury housing.
Maybe the government can zone the property for apartments conditional on them (or a certain amount of them) being affordable.
When you say developers vs. government should build the developers are applying to state and govt grants to build. They are not losing a ton of money by building low income property.
It’s easier to control low income with rent than with ownership. The bigger problem is the proportion of low income families fighting for the same housing.
No, it depends on the market not the developer.
If the developer is asking for a variance OR building something that will inconvenience everyone else by putting an extra strain on the limited infrastructure (parking) then yes he should be required to(1) have affordable housing and (2)pay an impact fee for all the inconvenience he is causing everyone else.
If he does not need a variance and his building won’t impact anyone else then he has no other obligations
Smerel, what a great idea! Charge an impact fee for cutting an illegal driveway. Charge a fee to the huge halls in Williamsburg and Flatbush for inconvenience to the neighborhood because of the increased noise and traffic from the cars ( plus filling parking spaces with guest’s cars ).
It is in the interest of the government and a healthy society to ensure that we create economically integrated neighborhoods instead of rich and poor ones.
Quite frankly, I believe that any religious Jew that believes in chesed and yosher should agree with this principle.
Unfortunately, that are many neighborhoods where long time apartment building owners keep raising rents pricing out their fellow Jewish brothers and sisters. This is not the neighborhood our chazal believed in.It depends on where you live. Some cities require developers to have x amount of properties built for affordable housing. Other areas depend on your housing authority and how they fund housing programs, private investors/owners can build multiple units as affordable housing and have them exclusively rented to lower income individuals and families.. These contracts are finite.
Affordable for whom?
In some jurisdictions that means low income housing, in others it can be single family houses that are on half acre plots and cost 400K.Most suburbs fight developers whop want to build low income housing because each home generates less than average property tax revenue and the inhabitants tend to have more children attending public school placing a burden on the town.
Being anti-low income housing is often a smoke screen for being racist…not wanting minorities moving in who can’t afford the regular minimum acreage zoned homes.City politicians fight to force developers to build affordable housing units in their projects, suburban residents fight to keep them out. I was a a local Planning and Zoning hearing last night. A developer wanted a variance to build 14 cluster single family homes on a 9 acre plot. The P&Z regulations would have permitted 9. He threatened if not approved he’d build 4 story affordable housing walk up apartments (50 units). The state permits this when a town ha less than 30% affordable units.
The public doesn’t like developer using this law to change the character of the town, so he was granted a variance to build the 14 homes, but restricted to 2 bedroom no den models, and every home must have a two car garage underneath, no on street parking permitted, guests must park in driveways or a private lot he must construct at the rear of the property,CTL, it’s wonderful to have you as a member as you so often happen to recently have been at a governmental, political, business, financial or family function that coincidentally happens to coincide with the CR topic of the hour. 😉
@Joseph
I attend local government meetings in my small town 2-3 nights per week this time of year, This is both budget formation time and prime time for P&Z applications, because builders/developers want to have shovels in the ground come May.
I enjoy the character of my small town and like being involved. Unlike NYC with its myriad of paid elected officials, our town has only two elected paid full time officials and two part-time. All other elected officials and board and commission members are citizen volunteers. That’s the New England way.I have a major investment in this town, homes, office, commercial property and like to protect my investments.
You haven’t seen me chime in on the vaccination threads as they are not an issue here. I could care less about the white shirt threads. Private schools get top set uniform requirement.
The real estate market is broken, but people still expect it to function normally.
I’m with CTL on this. It seems my evening entertainment lately is city meetings for the same reason CTL states. I guess it’s hard for folks who live in big cities to understand a person’s interest in local govt. Small town govt allows us as individuals to organize and impact those issues that are important to us. Right now budgets are an issue since we’ll be having a vote on a police and fire levy in May. And city planning and development is always important to me. Locally we have been able to provide for limited growth while still attracting ‘clean’ industry to town. Some developers are interested building large rental blocks for the university students and attempting to work around affordable housing mandates.
I actually agree with CTL on this point.
And in fact that is how the Founders of this country envisioned it being. The vast majority of governance would be done by citizen legislators who both knew what was best for their local community and had the personal investment to motivate them while the Federal government would mostly stay out of the way.
Sadly if has been transformed in every way as the Federal government is fighting for an ever increasing role in every part of my life.
If your name is occasional cortex
CTL, you remind of Mad Magazine’s definition of a liberal – over fifty years ago. He wants integrated schools in Mississippi and integrated neighborhoods in Mississippi. Have you joined the Federalist Society yet?
@AviKand 2
For someone who doesn’t live in the USA you have a lot to say about how we live.
How integrated is your neighborhood in EY? How many non-Jews are ion the state run schools in your neighborhood?There are 14 houses on my immediate block. 8 are owned and occupied by American born whites (2 belong to me and my daughter and her family occupy one of them that had been my late MIL’s). There are 2 African-American families, 2 Indo-Pak and Hispanic families.
I’d call that integrated
I’ve been to Mississipi, Jackson, Biloxi and Pass Christian on legal business for one of my trust clients. The neighborhoods are not integrated, nor are most public schools. In the 60s and 70s whites fled to gated communities and private schools.As for the Federalist Society, they have only one adult chapter in CT and it is restricted to lawyers, I am not interested in joining.
@Ben L
The citizen legislator is alive and well in Connecticut. No one could afford to live (they might exist) on the $28,000 salary we pay state reps and senators.
We have public financing of elections. A candidate for the state house needs to raise only $5,100 to qualify. It must come from at least 150 individuals who live in the district and the amounts of the contributions must be at least $5 and no more than $250. The candidate cannot give more than $1000 of personal money or loan the campaign more than $1000.
Thus the candidates run with equal campaign funding .CTL, Connecticut is so well run. It’s big cities are virtually bankrupt , and people and businesses are leaving in droves. Last year, only NJ and Illinois exceeded Conn in tje % of outbound population moves. MetroNorth continues to use ancient commuter cars on its New Haven branch because Conn can’t afford to pay for new ones. Wealthy residents had been providing a third of tax revenues and they are now leaving. Nearly half of the state budget goes to public union salaries, benefits and pensions.
As for your integrated neighborhood, so you agree with George Jefferson that there is no white power or black power, only green power.
CTL,
1. I never claimed to be a liberal.
2. If Americans and Europeans can have something to say about how we live in Israel I, who am an American citizen, can certainly have something to say about how you live in the US. While we are on the subject, the low pay of state legislators means that they must have outside income unless they are independently wealthy. That can lead to conflicts of interest in big government jurisdictions.
3. I thought that you are a lawyer.
4. Under the “Citizens United” jurisprudence the CT campaign finance laws might very well be violations of the First Amendment.@AviK
I have NO say on how you live in Israel, as long as I choose to live in galut it is not my business.
State Legislators work part-time and receive part-time pay. The legislative session is less than 5 months per year. Legislators are expected to earn their main living elsewhere.Participation in the public funding is voluntary so agreeing to the rules in order to accept the money does NOT violate Citizens United. Virtually every candidate for the state legislature in 2018 used the state funds unless banned for breaking the rules, unable to raise the minimum funds to qualify, or one rich dude oin Madison who thought he could buy his office and lost.
Neither candidate (multi-millionaires) for governor took public funds and they spent what they wanted. The winner is not taking a salary for being governor.
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I see you avoided the questions I posed to you about integration in Israel……….CTL, and you ignored how badly run Conn is. For years, they’ve plugged huge budget gaps by raising taxes, not cutting spending. Well, there is just so much that taxes can be raised. And, before you blame Trump, like Cuomo did, they’re not leaving because of the Federal $10,000 cap on state taxes. They’re leaving because of the high taxes!!
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