Tag Archives: Housing and Urban Development

Bill Lockwood: It is the Mammoth-Sized Government Which Destroys Lives 4 (1)

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by Bill Lockwood

Whatever one may think about the United States’ Government leaders’ involvement in bringing about the 1930’s Depression, the crisis was certainly used by the Democratic left to usher us into an unconstitutional era of Big Government intrusion. And it is this mammoth-sized government which, in the name of assisting the poor, crushes the lives and liberties of citizens.

Amity Shlaes, in her new masterful recounting of Lyndon Johnson’s socialistic Great Society programs, provides ample proof that big government erodes freedom. Her book, Great Society: A New History, documents how the do-gooders of yesteryear in reality “shackled millions of families in permanent government dependence.”

Setting the American people on the course of entitlement dependency – which is dependency upon government confiscated taxpayer money– Lyndon Johnson practically “precluded” a return to constitutionalism. One particular episode perfectly illustrates the destructive force of bureaucracy. It is the formation of the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and its implementation of “urban renewal.”

Destroying Families

As with its precursor, the Federal Housing Administration, HUD began using public monies to bribe the local communities to establish local housing authorities as receptacles to receive and dispense funds. As with all funds funneled through the federal government, these federal monies now controlled the projects themselves. One can see even today that every element of social and private life is controlled by Uncle Sam.

Illustrative of this is the fact that when massive housing structures such as Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis were built, only “welfare families were entitled to the lowest rents.” But to receive welfare in Missouri a family could have only one parent—normally, the mother. The government itself thus incentivized single-parent families. Where there were two-parent families, a mom and dad, many of these families actually “lost a father” in order to move into Pruitt-Igoe.

“’The stipulation was that my father could not be with us,’ recalled a former tenant, Jacquelyn Williams. ‘They would put us into the housing projects only if he left the state.’” The social workers even policed apartments at night, checking to see if father had secretly returned, grounds for eviction. Williams remembered this all her life. “We’re giving you money, so we have the right to make stipulations as to how you use it.”

Confiscating Private Property—Evicting Citizens

Next, “the only way to make grand-scale building possible [for public housing] was for the authorities to condemn and claim large swaths of private land.” For this they used the old doctrine of “eminent domain.” “Under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, this was the taking of private property for ‘public use.’” This was specifically constructed by the Founders for military and other public purposes.

But Johnson “began to bulldoze whole sections of cities, and then hand the land with its rubble to private developers. In Detroit, the violence to old neighborhoods was especially great.”

Black Detroit in the 1940’s and 1950’s lived packed in areas known as Paradise Valley and Black Bottom. The main retail thoroughfare, Hastings Street, was legendary, known the nation over because it was frequented by the singers and agents who later gave the country Motown music. Stores, churches, and homes stood tightly together, sometimes tightly enough to be called ‘slums,’ but often containing a vibrant life, much loved by the inhabitants.

However, liberty is lost in Big Government schemes, and regardless of what was and was not loved by the people who actually lived there, in “the eyes of the government, Black Bottom looked like blight. To the eyes of the auto unions and the Big Three automakers, pedestrian zones were a threat: highways that replaced sidewalks represented not only modernity but job security and high company share prices.”

The bulldozers leveled it all. Room was made for “public housing towers, for [Walter] Reuther’s Lafayette Park and for freeways. “Families had been herded into tall, anonymous apartment buildings, or had simply disappeared.” Hundreds of thousands of Americans, many poor or black, were evicted in this way.

Such grandiose government on the scale of Lenin was taken to court by home and business owners who resented the confiscation of their properties. As a matter of fact, both sides appealed to the Supreme Court. The homeowners and the government. In its decision, Berman v. Parker, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas “stretched the old concept of eminent domain like a rubber band.” His words are remarkable for the disdain of individual rights and the Constitution.

“’Public welfare,’ Douglas wrote, equating ‘public welfare’ with public use, should be ‘broad and inclusive.’ Authorized agencies could make their decisions about what to take freely.”

“’It is not for us to reappraise them,’ Douglas said. Douglas concluded by handing over his rubber band to government authorities. ‘If those who govern the District of Columbia decide that the nations’ capital shall be beautiful as well as sanitary, there is nothing in the Fifth Amendment that stands in the way.’”

Shlaes points out that more than 600,000 Americans were displaced by this totalitarian process.

Predictably, Johnson’s socialistic utopia of urban renewal failed. The vacancy rate of Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis was at 23.9 percent and 29.3 percent, much higher than in the free market. Poor maintenance meant that elevators jammed, windows were regularly broken by wild youngsters, gangs of thugs lurked in the halls, and the entire community surrounding it became a sorry joke. Even the architect hired by Johnson, Minoru Yamasaki apologized publicly for Pruitt-Igoe.

In the end one cannot but draw the conclusion that it is the government itself which destroys lives. Pruitt-Igoe a perfect illustration.

John Anthony: HOW TO ANNIHILATE U.S. SOCIALISM AND FORCE WASHINGTON TO LISTEN 0 (0)

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by John Anthony

Socialism’s barbs have sunk deep into the heart of America’s soul.  We see the Titanic struggle as Democrats and Republicans jointly hamper Trump’s attempts to return choices to the people. Washington will never willingly stop its progressive control, but we can make them.

As one who has studied the progressive/socialist movement from the Congressional halls to small communities across the country, I believe we have a rich opportunity to adopt an explosive method to defeat the anti-Constitutional forces in America.

For years, Constitutionalists have joined marches, attended meetings, written articles, and built networks.   Through speeches, seminars and videos we have exposed regionalists for grabbing local authority, sustainable development for driving up housing costs, and federal regulations for usurping local land use and zoning laws. Experts in education, climate science, and Constitutional law have bared how our federal agencies and court system are turning the land of the free into regions of the fettered.

Despite successes, every week reveals the incessant ‘tick-tock’ of the socialist advance.

In September 2016, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority used taxpayers’ money to reduce the monthly rents to $75 for HUD residents who visit relatives overseas for up to 3 months.  The agency felt it was unfair that East Africans should have to face fiancial hardship to take an international trip most working Americans may never be able to afford.

In 2014, an affordable housing developer proposed building low-cost housing in a closed Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania warehouse.  When the voters and officials rejected the plan for zoning reasons, the developer contacted HUD who sued Whitehall.  By December 2016, Whitehall agreed to change their zoning laws, operate under a court-appointed monitor, and pay the developer $375,000 for costs including “out of pocket expenses.”

In a socialist society, the government defines ‘fair’ and votes become a minor nuisance.

The progressive movement in America has advanced so far that in 2016, the unelected Thrive Regional Partnership consisting of 16 counties in Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama, urged their faked regional community to take “inspiration” from the works of Parag Khanna.  Khanna is a global strategist who preaches that nations must merge into connected regions overseen by direct technocracy.  He advocates that the American Democracy of our Founding Fathers, (he apparently does not realize the U.S. is a Constitutional Republic,) is “crumbling” and must be replaced by a technocratic intelligentsia.

Khanna’s technocracy model recommends we eliminate the U.S. Senate and replace the President with a 7-member panel of elite, ivy-league educated experts who are better equipped to make decisions than squabbling elected officials and uninformed citizens.  The nation would consist of regions managed by unelected councils. Local community members would merely have an opportunity to offer input. (Think of a regional planning session where all opinions are welcome, but only those that meet the pre-determined outcomes are accepted.)

This Communist nightmare is closer than you think. Regions like San Francisco’s Association of Bay Area Governments and Minneapolis’ Twin Cities Regional Council, routinely force through transit lines, toll roads, complete streets, and housing projects against voter’s wishes.

Along with dozens of other regions, these groups and hundreds of existing Councils of Governments are salivating to turn Khanna’s’ direct technocracy into your future.

President Trump has thrown a monkey wrench into the left’s relentless drive toward a centrally managed nation.  He has been immensely successful in re-working bad trade deals, opening industries for growth, and reducing costly federal regulations.  Perhaps his greatest accomplishment is the exposure of the vitriol and atrocities of the leftist establishment.

Still, Trump is not enough.

HUD’s 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, handed the progressive movement a legal tool to bludgeon communities into central planning and assault the poor while masquerading as their rescuers.  AFFH represents the clearest threat to independence, property rights, and local autonomy in our history.

Yet, HUD’s recent resolution of the AFFH-based Westchester case and the confirmation of Dr. Carson as HUD Secretary have left the rule fully intact.

We must disconnect local communities from federal dependence because it is the lifeblood of socialism. Big government does not help the poor, it feeds on them.  Since 1965 the U.S. poverty rate has not wavered from between 11% and 15%, ever!  This, despite spending over $20 trillion.

The left needs the poor to be poor.  It is the only way they can garner the votes to remain office.  Imagine entering an election cycle knowing that 11% – 15% of the people think they need you for they fear they will not eat.

It is not just poverty that propels socialism. The socialist movement eliminated Christianity in government and education because they know what our Founders knew. Only a moral society can be a free society.  Without a Christian moral foundation, America devolves into more offenses and violence, which leads to more elitists and tighter state control.

It is time to attack the heart of the progressive beast. The only way to kill the socialist movement is to free the poor, eliminate the demand for federal money and reinstate the church as the center of community life.

A growing society of independent, financially successful, Christian practicing, and capitalist African-Americans and Latinos is the equivalent of an Ebola outbreak inside the haughty progressive political community.

This much-abused base must be realigned with people who have no political axes and no concern other than to help them out of poverty and to share in freedom.

Community programs are already proving that low-income minorities will change their allegiances when they feel the benefits of new opportunities. That is why, in the Spring of 2017 I started the Miss Mary Project.  We are a church-based program that teaches working age members of low-income families in urban and suburban areas, not just how to get a job, but how to excel on the job and become indispensable, promotable employees. Rather than help people rise to just above poverty, we help propel them to a lifetimg of success, reducing the need for federal programs.

Our work is based on 30 years of corporate leadership training experience and builds on existing successful programs for the poor.  The Miss Mary Project has been so well-received that we are already opening publicly supported centers in Chattanooga, TN and Greenville, SC with plans to go nationwide.

We can defeat socialism, but not through reactionary and survivalist methods.  We must once again make the church the center of our community life and engage in and support positive local programs that truly help people become financially independent and free of government.

SFL: https://www.wnd.com/2019/06/your-leaders-never-cared-about-you/https://sustainablefreedomlab.org/2017/08/09/how-to-annihilate-u-s-socialism-and-force-washington-to-listen/

Read John Anthony’s Biography

Kathleen Marquardt: FORM-BASED CODES: REPLACING THE EVERYDAY AMERICAN CITY WITH THE ‘IDEAL COMMUNIST CITY’ 0 (0)

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by Kathleen Marquardt

Form-Based Code /fôrm-bāsed kōd/ noun

A form-based code is a land development regulation that fosters predictable built results and a high-quality public realm by using physical form (rather than separation of uses) as the organizing principle for the code. A form-based code is a regulation, not a mere guideline, adopted into city, town, or county law. A form-based code offers a powerful alternative to conventional zoning regulation.

Several years ago, I wrote a series of articles for News with Views, explaining Sustainable Development. Today two of them are popping up regularly in the media. Back when I wrote these two articles, people would not believe that all this planning and organizing could have been dreamed up by the Power Elite, let along set down as part of the blueprint for Agenda 21.

Read that definition above of Form-based Code again. Note: “a regulation, not a mere guideline for every city, town, or county”. And “a powerful alternative to conventional zoning regulation”. You be it is. The only good I can see from this is that we can get rid of 90% of the staff on our planning commissions – everything will be spelled out for us by the Power Elite. There will be no exceptions.

Today, A Southern California county put the finishing touches on a first-of-its-kind wildlife corridor Tuesday that will protect important pathways for animals to pass between critical habitats and into Los Padres National Forest. This is part of the Wildlands Project. “The main aim is to provide restrictions on development to provide adequate pathways for wildlife to pass through rural and semirural parts of Ventura County. Guidelines under the new zoning ordinance include restrictions on outdoor lighting, fencing and other development that could hinder animals. Waterways will also gain a 200-foot buffer to protect animals from human incursion.” (boldface mine.) Straight out of the Wildlands Project.

  • Then there is this from Tom DeWeese: Chicago, Illinois: So-called “affordable housing” advocates have filed a federal complaint against the longtime tradition of allowing City Aldermen veto power over most development proposals in their wards, charging that it promotes discrimination by keeping low-income minorities from moving into affluent white neighborhoods. Essentially the complaint seeks to remove the Aldermen’s ability to represent their own constituents.
  • Baltimore, Maryland: The NAACP filed a suit against the city charging that Section 8 public housing causes ghettos because they are all put into the same areas of town. They won the suit and now the city must spend millions of dollars to move such housing into more affluent neighborhoods. In addition, landlords are no longer permitted to ask potential tenants if they can afford the rent on their properties.
  • Oregon: Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives Tina Kotek (D-Portland) is drafting legislation that would end single-family zoning in cities of 10,000 or more. She claims there is a housing shortage crisis and that economic and racial segregation are caused by zoning restrictions.

Where does this come from? 

AGENDA 21: THE END OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
PART 6

By Kathleen Marquardt
June 27, 2012
NewsWithViews.com

Part 6 The Transect

“In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” “Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” -George Orwell, author and Fabian Socialist

In my article, “Incrementalism, Regionalism and Revolution,” I briefly touched on planning and quoted from author, Jo Hindman. She will again help me explain what is happening vis a vis Urban Renewal and metro-planning. From her book, Blame Metro, we read, “Much is written about the incognito warfare on United States soil which public officials and their accomplices are waging to wrest private property from landowners. The strategy is to make property ownership so unbearable by harassment through building inspections, remodeling orders, fines and jailings, that owners give up in despair and sell to land redevelopers at cut-rate prices. Positive municipal codes are the weapons in the warfare.”[1]

Note, Hindman wrote that in 1966, yet it fully applies to today’s attacks on private property; many of the same strategies are being used, they just “changed the names to protect the guilty.”

Hindman writes, “‘Strengthening county government’ is a hackneyed Metro phrase indicating that the Metro take-over has begun. . .. Planning assistance subsidized by Federal money leads small cities and counties into direct obedience under a regional master plan. Land use rights are literally stolen (ital. mine) from landowners when zoning is applied to land.”[2]

In 1949, the Communitarian forebears of today’s planners wrote the original plans that were designed to free us of our property under the National Housing Act. Back then it was the American Society of Planning Officials,[3]the American Institute of Planners, and the National Planning Association. Today it is the American Planning Association (APA), which was formed in 1978 by combining the American Institute of Planners and the Society of Planning Officials. As you can see by their footnote, the APA brags that they were meddling in our private affairs since 1909, in fact here are the exact words, “On May 21-22, 1909, 43 planners met in Washington, D.C., at the first National Planning Conference. This event is considered to be the birth of the planning movement in America.” A sad day for the American Republic.

Mimicking today’s ICLEI V.P. Harvey Ruvin, the 60s’ American Institute of Planners “makes no bones about its socialist stance regarding land; its constitution states AIP’s ‘particular sphere of activity shall be the planning of the unified development of urban communities and their environs and of states, regions, and the nation as expressed through determination of the comprehensive arrangement of land uses and land occupancy and the regulation thereof.[4] . . .The present-day crew of planners, drawing no line between public and private property, believe that land-use control should be vested in government and that public planners should have sole right to control the use of all land.”[5]

That is not just similar to what is going on today; that is exactly what is happening. Why? Because the sons, daughters and cronies of the puppeteers that were pulling the strings back in the beginning and middle of the 20th Century are pulling the strings of today’s planners. We just have a new generation of the same treacherous, thieving scheme updated with new-fangled, high-tech sounding names for the same old land (and people) control mechanisms.

THE TRANSECT

A 2002 APA Journal article gives the original meaning of transect as: a cut or path through part of the environment showing a range of different habitats. Biologists and ecologists use transects to study the many symbiotic elements that contribute to habitats where certain plants and animals thrive.

Planners took that technique, one that was designed for studying flora and fauna, and tweaked it to apply to humans. I would say the tweak was more a wrenching, actually it is more in the line of suspending critical thinking to superimpose the artificial and nonsensical process of the transect on humans and their mobilization.

Under the biological study, a transect shows where certain flora and fauna thrive, exist somewhat readily, or barely subsist in the different habitats from (get description i.e., arctic to tropical). With great literary(?) license, planners take the definition of biologic transect and, like Oliver Stone, rewrites history, these planners are rewriting biology; they want to play an active role in the phylogeny of homo sapiens, in fact they want to devolve it. One of the problems here is that their fairy tale is being used to take property rights (and thus liberty) from man and make him a slave. Laws should not be based upon make-believe. Yet this country, no the entire world, is being redesigned using Communitarians’ far-fetched, pseudo-utopian desires to sate the global elites’ desire to control the entire globe.

Look at their definition of transect for people and land planning: “Human beings also thrive in different habitats. Some people prefer urban centers and would suffer in a rural place, while others thrive in the rural or suburban zones. Before the automobile, American development patterns were walkable, and transects within towns and city neighborhoods revealed areas that were less urban and more urban in character. This urbanism could be analyzed as natural transects are analyzed.”[Link]

To compare humans in differing habitats with flora or fauna is preposterous hubris, and especially because the planners are using apples and oranges: “some people prefer urban centers and would suffer in a rural place,” does not mean the same thing as the biology transect means. The suffering would be a mental fabrication and would be such that to call it suffering in the same sense as plants or animals outside their natural habitat is absurd.

The planners also extol the virtues of the time before the automobile, “American development patterns were walkable, and transects within towns and city neighborhoods revealed areas that were less urban and more urban in character. This urbanism could be analyzed as natural transects are analyzed.” As if what we have today is “unnatural.” What these planners keep forgetting (and want us to forget also) is that we humans are part of nature and thus what we are and what we do is natural. Unlike other animals, we humans have a moral and cognitive brain. Our brain is what provides us with the necessary tools we need to survive and prosper, and one of those tools is the automobile.

So we have a convoluted, computer-modeled construct of what the entire ecosystem of the world should be and is called the Transect. But as with everything else in this New World Order NewSpeak, that really isn’t the truth. No, they did not sit down with the details of biological transect and translate it via computer modeling to a human/development version. What they did was take The Ideal Communist City[6] and figured out how to sell it to the American public by superimposing it over their Transect model.

The APA describes the Transect as “a geographical cross-section of a region used to reveal a sequence of environments. For human environments, this cross-section can be used to identify urban character, a continuum that ranges from rural to urban. In transect planning, this range of environments is the basis for organizing the components of the built world: building, lot, land use, street, and all of the other physical elements of the human habitat.[7] Pay close attention to that last sentence, “the basis for organizing the components of the built world.” In my understanding of English, that means telling us where each component of our lives goes; we don’t get to choose where we build our homes unless they in the area designated by planners. I am not misreading that because that same sentence continues, “building, lot, land use, street, and all of the other physical elements of the human habitat(ital. mine).” Sounds fairly simple to me, we will be told what and where we may build or even if we may build, and how we will live in that habitat.

To continue from the APA article, “In transect planning, the essential task is to find the main qualities of immersive environments,[8] …. Once these are discovered, transect planning principles are applied to rectify the inappropriate intermixing of rural and urban elements — better known as sprawl. This is done by eliminating the ‘urbanizing of the rural’. . . or, equally damaging, the ‘ruralizing of the urban’.

into discrete categories. This approach is also dictated by the requirement that human habitats fit within the language of our current approach to land regulation (i.e., zoning).”[9]

The discrete categories of the transect continuum run from Rural Preserve, Rural Reserve, Sub-Urban, General Urban, Urban Center to Urban Core. Understand that the Rural Preserve is the Wildlands, the area humans will be forbidden to enter, and the Rural Reserve will be the connecting corridors to the Reserve area, i.e., corridors for fauna movement and human use will be highly restricted.

Remember, as I pointed out at the beginning of this article, the Communitarians, or global elites, introduced the zoning and planning systems used in this country. Now that they have gotten the American public inured to “planning,” they want to move us to the next step — where they plan every aspect of our lives through planning. To do so, they have to pretend that the original zones and plans came from us, the people, so they can say they need to throw the old ones out and introduce a whole new system. We are told, “The most important obstacle to overcome is the restrictive and incorrect zoning codes currently in force in most municipalities. Current codes do not allow New Urbanism to be built, but do allow sprawl. Adopting a TND ordinance and/or a system of ‘smart codes’ allows New Urbanism to be built easily without having to rewrite existing codes.”

If you go to the link above, you will see that New Urbanism (transect planning plus) deals with everything but property rights. (Actually property rights are verboten in this not-so-brave new world they are bringing us, so they ignore them because property rights will not exist in the not to distant future if we do not put a stop to this.) It is Sustainable Development written in capitals and boldface. And how do they plan on doing this? The most effective way to implement New Urbanism is to plan for it, and write it into zoning and development codes. This directs all future development into this form.

Note: “directs all future development into this form.”

The new planning codes they want: Smart Codes. What are they?

Footnotes:

1.  Hindman, Jo, Blame Metro, Caxton Press, 1966, p. 21.
2. Ibid. p.80.
3. Within APA would be a professional institute — the American Institute of Certified Planners — that would be responsible for the national certification of professional planners. “Although AIP was incorporated in 1917 (as the American City Planning Institute, renamed the American Institute of Planners in 1939), and ASPO in 1934, we actually trace our roots further back to 1909 and the first National Conference on City Planning in Washington, D.C. From that and subsequent conferences, the organized planning movement emerged, first through our two predecessors and, since 1978, through APA.” (from APA website)
4. AIP Constitution (1960).
5. Hindman, Blame Metro, p.116.
6. Baburov, et al, The Ideal Communist City, i Press Series on the human environment, 1968.
7. “Transect Planning,” Duany, Andres and Emily Talen. APA Journal, Summer 2002, Vol. 68, No. 3, p.245.
8. a term borrowed from “the notion of virtual reality. . .. When these virtual environments are successful, they are said to be immersive — virtual models that function as if they were actual environments.”
9. Ibid, p.247.

AGENDA 21: THE END OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
PART 7

The Smart Code

[Note: Part 6, “The Transect,” should be read before reading this article to get full understanding of SmartCode.]

One of the most fundamental requirements of a capitalist economic system—and one of the most misunderstood concepts—is a strong system of property rights. For decades social critics in the United States and throughout the Western world have complained that “property” rights too often take precedence over “human” rights, with the result that people are treated unequally and have unequal opportunities. Inequality exists in any society. But the purported conflict between property rights and human rights is a mirage. Property rights are human rights. –Arman Alchian

“The SmartCode is a form-based code that incorporates Smart Growth and New Urbanism principles. It is a unified development ordinance, addressing development at all scales of design, from regional planning on down to the building signage. It is based on the rural-to-urban transect rather than separated-use zoning, thereby able to integrate a full range of environmental techniques. Because the SmartCode envisions intentional outcomes based on known patterns of urban design, it is a more succinct and efficient document than most conventional codes.“ (To download SmartCode, go down to smartcode version 9.2 and click on it.)

The American Planning Association brags that their “definition emphasizes comprehensive planning that results in a unique sense of community and place, preservation of natural and cultural resources, of the expansion of transportation and housing choices beyond what we have now and we also emphasize the promotion of public health and healthy communities, which is an issue that has just begun to surface over the past two years.”[1]Understand that the “transportation and housing choices beyond what we have now” refer to walking, biking, rail and stack-em and pack-em housing. We have all those means of transportation now but we are not utilizing them as the APA and other Sustainable Development proponents would like because they are either expensive, impractical or unappealing to us. There is stack-em and pack-em housing already in large cities and in slum areas. Right now, most people chose what kind of housing they want and many chose single family homes in suburban (aka sprawl in Greenspeak) and rural areas — anathema to Smart Growth promoters. Also we want to retain our individual freedom which would negate being forced into communal housing with the associated communal living requirements of Smart Growth.

You may notice that they (Sustainablists, Commutarians) keep touting that people are moving from the rural and suburban areas into the cities at great rates “because they want the infrastructure and amenities available there.” I am not sure that people are moving into cities (yet) in any great numbers, but those groups, let’s call them Sustainablists, not only want to drive people into the cities (so they can be more easily controlled), and they are writing the planning to do just that. Looking at areas around the country, they are succeeding because they have established planning commissions in every city, town and county.

“The SmartCode is a form-based code, meaning it envisions and encourages a certain physical outcome — the form of the region, community, block, and/or building. Form-based codes are fundamentally different from conventional codes that are based primarily on use and statistics — none of which envision or require any particular physical outcome.”[2] Right, conventional codes, the codes used now, do not require all buildings, streets and towns to look alike.

“The SmartCode is a tool that guides the form of the built environment in order to create and protect development patterns that are compact, walkable, and mixed use. These traditional neighborhood patterns tend to be stimulating, safe, and ecologically sustainable. The SmartCode requires a mix of uses within walking distance of dwellings, so residents aren’t forced to drive everywhere. It supports a connected network to relieve traffic congestion. At the same time, it preserves open lands, as it operates at the scale of the region as well as the community.”[3] Go back and look closely at what was said: “. . . guides the form of the built environment, . . .” just as I said above, they are making all buildings the same.

And remember, in Part 6, The Transect, I quoted the the APA , “In transect planning, this range of environments is the basis for organizing the components of the built world: building, lot, land use, street, and all of the other physical elements of the human habitat. (emphasis mine)”[4]

Transfer of Development Rights (TDR)

“Local governments use TDR programs to mitigate the economic impact of land use regulations, specifically to compensate landowners for perceived partial takings (Johnston and Madison, 1997). This planning tool offers landowners a way to recapture some lost economic value when a property is downzoned[1] from residential use to agricultural use for preservation purposes.” Note the two phrases: “to compensate landowners for perceived partial takings” and “to recapture some lost economic value when a property is downzoned.” They are inferring that takings are a figment of the property owners’ imaginations and with the “recapture of some lost value” admitting that they are not going to compensate owners with the full value of their property.

Some of the things the SmartCode does:

  • “It utilizes a type of zoning category that ranges systematically from the wilderness to the urban core.”[5]In other words, it encompasses the entire land mass.
    • “It enables and qualifies Smart Growth community patterns that include Clustered Land Development (CLD), Traditional Neighborhood Development (TNDTM), Regional Center Development (RCD), and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD).”[6]
    • “It integrates the scale of planning concern from the regional through the community scale, on down to the individual lot and, if desired, its architectural elements.”[7] In other words, every aspect of development and they want to chose your appliances also.
    • “It integrates methods of environmental protection, open space conservation and water quality control.
    • “It integrates subdivision, public works and Transfer of Development Rights(TDR) standards.
    • “It encourages specific outcomes through incentives, rather than through prohibitions.”[8] The intention is to make using SmartCode easy and standard codes difficult so that people are inclined to take the path of least resistance — not realizing what it means for property rights and individual freedom. “Encouraging specific outcomes” should scare the devil out of you. Why would they want specific outcomes for every person in America?

As I noted near the beginning of this article the APA brags that their “definition emphasizes comprehensive planning that results in a unique sense of community and place, preservation of natural and cultural resources, of the expansion of transportation and housing choices beyond what we have now and we also emphasize the promotion of public health and healthy communities, which is an issue that has just begun to surface. . . .” What the meaning is that humans will no longer own their own homes instead we will be herded into the “unique sense of community and place” which is the stack-em and pack-em Smart Growth communal habitats. The healthy communities are Commutarian, Sustainablist versions of healthy, but healthy for whom? Not for individuals who believe in free will, individual freedom and the right to private property. In these new “healthy communities” you will be told what is healthy and what is not and you will not be given the choice of deciding for yourself if you want to follow the leader. You think Bloomberg’s soda ban is draconian, just wait.

In Part 8 I will go deeper into SmartCode.

Footnotes:

1. American Institute of Certified Planners, Green Infrastructure, “Smart Growth Codes,” Transcript p5, January 21, 2004.
2.Center for Applied Transect Studies, SmartCode, p V.
3. Ibid
4. “Transect Planning,” Duany, Andres and Emily Talen. APA Journal, Summer 2002, Vol. 68, No. 3, p.245.
5. Center for Applied Transect Studies, SmartCode, p VIII
6. Ibid
7. Ibid
8. Ibid

AGENDA 21: THE END OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
PART 8

By Kathleen Marquardt
October 2, 2012
NewsWithViews.com

Much is written about the international cold war, but little about the incognito warfare on United States soil which public officials and their accomplices are waging to wrest private property from landowners. Jo Hindman, 1972, Blame Metro, p31.

Objectives

10.5 The broad objective is to facilitate allocation of land to the uses that provide the greatest sustainable benefits and to promote the transition to a sustainable and integrated management of land resources. In doing so, environmental, social and economic issues should be taken into consideration. In more specific terms, the objectives are as follows:

(a) To review and develop policies to support the best possible use of land and the sustainable management of land resources by not later than 1996. Agenda 21, Earth Summit, p.85

Today (1995), some 70 years after (Herbert) Hoover‘s committee drafted the standard acts,[1] another, similar effort is taking place: the American Planning Association’s GrowingSmart project.[2]

In Part 6, I discussed the Transect which is a system to divide the land of our country (and the world) into the Wildlands devised by Arne Noss (deep ecologist) and Dave Foreman (radical environmentalist), but under deceptive, seductive names. You can read how a New Urbanism posted story titled “Transect applied to regional plans,” describes it:

“The Transect has six zones, moving from rural to urban. It begins with two that are entirely rural in character: Rural preserve (protected areas in perpetuity); and Rural reserve (areas of high environmental or scenic quality that are not currently preserved, but perhaps should be). The transition zone between countryside and town is called the Edge, which encompasses the most rural part of the neighborhood, and the countryside just beyond. The Edge is primarily single family homes. Although Edge is the most purely residential zone, it can have some mixed-use, such as civic buildings (schools are particularly appropriate for the Edge). Next is General, the largest zone in most neighborhoods. General is primarily residential, but more urban in character (somewhat higher density with a mix of housing types and a slightly greater mix of uses allowed).

At the urban end of the spectrum are two zones which are primarily mixed use: Center (this can be a small neighborhood center or a larger town center, the latter serving more than one neighborhood); and Core (serving the region — typically a central business district). Core is the most urban zone.” (ital. mine)

Michael Coffman’s Wildlands Map, calls the zones by different names (protected instead of rural preserved, corridors for rural reserve, etc) but the results are the same: people in cages and animals having the run of the country, with 50% of American land off limits to humans.

How is all this to be done? According to Agenda 21, by “Promoting application of appropriate tools for planning and management

10.8 Governments at the appropriate level, with the support of national and international organizations, should promote the improvement, further development and widespread application of planning and management tools that facilitate an integrated and sustainable approach to land and resources.” One of the tools, of course, is SmartCode.

SmartCode is defined in a pamphlet of 72 pages; there is no way all of it can summarize all of it in this article but I am going to give some highlights (?) (in ital) with page numbers so you can look them up with the accompanying information:

  • The provisions of this Code, when in conflict, shall take precedence over those of other codes, ordinances, regulations and standards except the local health and safety codes. p2 In other words, this code is to be the law of the land, both literally and figuratively.
  • INTENT

The Region a. that the region should retain its natural infrastructure and visual character derived from topography, woodlands, farmlands, riparian corridors and coastlines. b. that growth strategies should encourage Infill and redevelopment in parity with new communities. p2 In real terms, build in the cities (up when you can’t go out), but have the rest of the area as pristine as possible, no matter how many homes you have to raze.

The Community

  • that neighborhoods and regional centers should be compact, pedestrian-oriented[3] and Mixed use.
  • that neighborhoods and regional centers should be the preferred pattern of development and that Districts specializing in a single use should be the exception.
  • that ordinary activities of daily living should occur within walking distance of most dwellings, allowing independence to those who do not drive.Think about how cities like Knoxville, Los Angeles, even Bethesda, MD, will have to be almost totally redeveloped to achieve this goal. The costs will be astronomical. (Consider also the psychological cost of everyone having to live identically to everyone else.)
  • that the region should include a framework of transit, pedestrian, and bicycle systems that provide alternatives to the automobile.

The Block and the Building

  • that civic buildings should be distinctive and appropriate to a role more important than the other buildings that constitute the fabric of the city.Reminiscent of Nazi German: government is the most important entity thus their buildings should reflect that sentiment.
  • that the harmonious and orderly evolution of urban areas should be secured through form-based codes. p3 I recommend that you check out The Ideal Communist City by Alexei Gutnov et al. to see what is envisioned to replace our often beautiful, sometimes eclectic cities and towns; harmonious and orderly means cookie-cutter, stack-em and pack-em buildings with zero personality. Forget gingerbread, forget picture windows; even a Potempkin Village is out of the realm of our new reality.
  • that the transect Zone descriptions on table 1 shall constitute the intent of this code with regard to the general character of each of these environments. p4.

TAKE NOTE

  • twenty years after the approval of a regulating plan, each transect Zone, except the t1 natural and t2 rural Zones, shall be automatically rezoned to the successional (next higher) transect Zone, unless denied in public hearing by the legislative body. p 5. Read that closely; after 20 years of Sustainable Development there will be far few humans, thus the space set aside for their habitation can be reduced, eventually eliminating all areas of habitation except the infill growth sector (core); the other zones will eventually revert to t1 and t2, wildlands and corridors.
  • regional plansshall integrate the largest practical geographic area, overlapping property lines as necessary and municipal boundaries if possible. p5. (led by unelected councils)..
  • the areas to be designated preserved open sector (o-1) shall be mapped using the criteria listed in section 2.3. the outline of this sector is effectively the rural boundary line, which is permanent. (bold, mine) p6. It is only permanent vis a vis human encroachment; the line with be drawn ever outward as humans are removed.
  • A system for the gradual transfer of Development rights (tDr) shall be established and administered for the purpose of transferring development rights from the reserved open sector (o-2) to the Growth sectors as set forth in section 2.4.3.
  • the preserved open sector shall consist of open space that is protected from development in perpetuity.(bold, mine)
  • the preserved open sector includes areas under envi-ronmental protection by law or regulation, as well as land acquired for conservation through purchase, by easement, or by past transfer of Development rights. p6
  • the reserved open sector shall consist of open space thatshould be, but is not yet, protected from development. p7. (Like PacMan they will get to it eventually.)
  • the reserved open sector is a transfer of Development rights (tDr) sending area, for the gradual sale of rights for development in the controlled Growth sector and the intended Growth sector. An owner who has purchased such development rights may exceed the allocated Densities of new communities as set forth in section 3.8 and table 14b. Areas from where development rights have been transferred shall be designated Preserved Open Sector.The Planning Office shall maintain a record of such transfers, updating the regional map accordingly. p7
  • the restricted Growth sector shall be assigned to areas that have value as open space but nevertheless are subject to development, either because the zoning has already been granted or because there is no legally defensible reason, in the long term, to deny it.(bold, mine) Within the restricted Growth sector, clustered land Development (clD) shall be permitted by right. p7.
  • lawn shall be permitted only by Warrant. p13.(This doesn’t mean you can plant a garden where your lawn once was.)
  • the public Frontage shall include trees planted in a regularly-spaced Allee pattern of single or alternated species with shade canopies of a height that, at maturity, clears at least one story. p13. (Look at the plans, they dictate where trees are to be placed and which species are allowed.)
  • Designations for Mandatory and/or recommended retail Frontage requiring or advising that a building provide a Shopfront at Sidewalk level along the entire length of its private Frontage. the shopfront shall be no less than 70% glazed in clear glass and shaded by an awning overlapping the Sidewalk as generally illustrated in Table 7 and specified in Article 5. The first floor shall be confined to retail use through the depth

There is so much more and you can download the entire SmartCode, go about halfway down the page linked here.

We Americans (and the rest of the world, yes, but right now I am most concerned about the fate of the once freest country every conceived by man) are being forced, incrementally, into slavery or death. So many good, well-meaning people say, “Don’t worry, when they come for my property I will meet them with my guns.” If only it were that simple.

Instead we are being moved out of our property through fees, taxes, regulations and zoning. By the time the powers-that-be decide it is time to bring out the guns, most of us will not be living that once-great American Dream with a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot. We will be in high-density, stack-em and pack-em housing sharing our meager food and water (if we have any) with too many other people as well as rats and other vermin.

This is probably our last chance to stop Agenda21 Sustainable Development and the global elites. We must do it at the local level, halting the regionalization before it becomes what it is intended: socialism, communism, whatever.

I watch my neighbors buying more and more toys and fancier cars, adding ever more elaborate detailing to their heavily-mortgaged homes and enjoying the mindless pleasures offered them by mainstream media. Ignorance might be bliss at this moment, but what will it be like when the financial collapse hits?

May the Lord help us, we don’t seem to be doing the job.

APC: https://americanpolicy.org/2019/04/02/form-based-codes-replacing-the-everyday-american-city-with-the-ideal-communist-city/https://americanpolicy.org/2019/05/15/red-flag-laws-double-speak-for-gun-confiscation/

Read Kathleen Marquardt’s Biography

Tom DeWeese: THE GROWING ASSAULT ON PRIVATE PROPERTY – ARE SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES “RACIST?” 0 (0)

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by Tom DeWeese

One of the main indicators used by economists to measure the health of the nation’s economy is housing starts – the number of private homes being built around the nation. In 2018 housing starts fell in all four regions of the nation, representing the biggest drop since 2016.

While many economists point to issues such as higher material costs as a reason for the drop in housing starts, a much more ominous reason may be emerging. Across the nation, city councils and state legislatures are beginning to remove zoning protections for single-family neighborhoods, claiming they are racist discrimination designed to keep certain minorities out of such neighborhoods. In response to these charges some government officials are calling for the end of single-family homes in favor of multiple family apartments.

  • Minneapolis, Minnesota: the city council is moving to remove zoning that protects single-family neighborhoods, instead planning to add apartment buildings in the mix. The mayor actually said such zoning was “devised as a legal way to keep black Americans and other minorities from moving into certain neighborhoods”. Racist, social injustice are the charges
  • Chicago, Illinois: So-called “affordable housing” advocates have filed a federal complaint against the longtime tradition of allowing City Aldermen veto power over most development proposals in their wards, charging that it promotes discrimination by keeping low-income minorities from moving into affluent white neighborhoods. Essentially the complaint seeks to remove the Aldermen’s ability to represent their own constituents.
  • Baltimore, Maryland: The NAACP filed a suit against the city charging that Section 8 public housing causes ghettos because they are all put into the same areas of town. They won the suit and now the city must spend millions of dollars to move such housing into more affluent neighborhoods. In addition, landlords are no longer permitted to ask potential tenants if they can afford the rent on their properties.
  • Oregon: Speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives Tina Kotek (D-Portland) is drafting legislation that would end single-family zoning in cities of 10,000 or more. She claims there is a housing shortage crisis and that economic and racial segregation are caused by zoning restrictions.

Such identical policies don’t just simultaneously spring up across the country by accident. There is a force behind it. The root of these actions are found in “fair housing” policies dictated by the federal Housing and Urban Development Agency (HUD). The affected communities have all taken HUD grants. There is very specific language in those grants that suggest single family homes are a cause of discrimination. Specifically, through the HUD program called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH), the agency is taking legal action against communities that use “discriminating zoning ordinances that discourage the development of affordable, multifamily housing…”. The suits are becoming a widely used enforcement tool for the agency.

To enforce its social engineering policies HUD demands the following from communities that have applied for or taken HUD grants:

  • First, HUD forces the community to complete an “Assessment of Fair Housing” to identify all “contributing factors” to discrimination. These include a complete breakdown of race, income levels, religion, and national origin of every single person living there. They use this information to determine if the neighborhood meets a preset “balance,” determined by HUD.
  • Second, HUD demands a detailed plan showing how the community intends to eliminate the “contributing factors” to this “imbalance.”
  • Once the plan is prepared, then the community is required to sign an agreement to take no actions that are “materially inconsistent with its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing.”

Americans who have grown up experiencing private home ownership as the root to personal prosperity must quickly learn of the threat of the HUD/AFFH program. They must fully understand why cities like Chicago, Minneapolis and Baltimore and states like Oregon have suddenly announced actions to eliminate single-family home zoning. These cities have already taken the grant poison and must now comply. The ultimate government game is to reorganize our cities into massive urban areas where single-family neighborhoods are replaced by the Sustainable/Smart Growth model of “Stack and Pack,” wall-to-wall apartment buildings.

To the frustration of those Sustainablists determined to change our entire economic system, the legal protection of private property rights and ownership have proven to be a roadblock for implementation. New York Mayor William DeBlasio best expressed the frustration of those driving to control community development when he was quoted in New York Magazine saying, “What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property. I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it and what the rent will be.”

Most importantly, HUD and its social engineering advocates have sold these so-called sustainable policies using the well-worn excuse that such programs are simply to help lower income families to succeed. In fact, these programs are actually at the very root of why many of them are NOT succeeding.

The immediate result of eliminating single-family homes and in turn, destroying private property rights, is to degrade the property values of the homes so many have worked to build. It used to be called the American dream. Now it’s labeled racism, discrimination, and social injustice.

Eradicating poverty is the most popular excuse for the expansion of government power. Yet, it’s interesting to note that not a single government program, from the federal to the local level, offers any plan for eradicating poverty except the well-worn and unworkable scheme of wealth redistribution. After decades of following such a failed policy the only result is that we have more poor.

Today, as demonstrated in Oregon, Minneapolis, Baltimore and Chicago, we hear the claims that there is a “housing crisis” and so government must take a dramatic step to solve the very crisis is has created. As economist Thomas Sowell has said, “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”

It is interesting to note that, as private property ownership shrinks under these misguided policies, so too does the nation’s wealth. Sustainable policies are at the root of nearly every local, state, and federal program. Each step diminishes individual freedom, personal and national prosperity, and the destruction of the hopes and dream of every American. The American Policy Center is determined to lead the fight to end this misnamed and disastrous ‘Sustainable’ course for our country.

APC: https://americanpolicy.org/2019/03/07/the-growing-assault-on-private-property-are-single-family-homes-racist/

Read Tom Deweese’s Biography

Kathleen Marquardt: THE DEFINITION OF “IS” 0 (0)

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Kathleen Marquardt: THE DEFINITION OF “IS” – “I do not want to believe that Trump is just using blue smoke and mirrors…”

by Kathleen Marquardt

No, this has nothing (or very little) to do with Bill Clinton. My question is, ‘Is President Trump’ for or against Sustainable Development? He and his cabinet give mixed signals. Yes, Trump has done more positive things than any president in the last decade, that I can remember, anyway. But then there is this:

Oh, boy! Here we go. Actually, Zinke needs to go.

I emphasized the text in bold to indicate the usual farce of Agenda21/2030 that is going to be the destruction of Western Culture. Keep in mind that the usual disclaimer for A21/2030 is “strictly advisory” and “soft-law”, horse pocky! This piece brags that the Department of Interior will be blanketing all public lands with public/private partnerships, as if this is a good thing. They are painting with words so pretty to make you think Interior is the most patriotic of all departments, while what they are doing is so insidiously evil the devil will celebrate them if they pull this off. Zinke calls it Made in America, but instead it is the unmaking of America, the tearing apart of the Constitution. PPPs help SD destroy property rights – the bedrock of freedom.

As Tom describes PPPs in the link below this one: “It is little understood by the general public how Public/Private Partnerships are actually used, not as a way to diminish the size of government, but in fact, to increase government’s power. In truth, many PPPs are nothing more than government-sanctioned monopolies. These privileged few businesses are granted special favors like tax breaks, free use of eminent domain, non-compete clauses in government contracts, and specific guarantees of return on their investments. That means the companies, in partnership with the government, can fix their prices, charging beyond what the market demands. They can use their relationship with government to put competition out of business. This is not free enterprise, nor is it government controlled by the people.”

In other words, PPPs are fascism in disguise. And, hopefully, America has seen enough of Sustainable Development in any form – Public/Private/Partnerships, carbon footprints, Common Core, social justice, you name it. Let’s tell Zinke that we just say, NO to calling an Agenda 21/2030 scheme “Made in America” as if it were baseball or apple pie, instead of the anti-American pile of horse-pocky that it is.

Secretary Zinke announces Creation of the “Made in America” Recreation Advisory Committee

“ Today, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced the establishment of the “Made in America” Recreation Advisory Committee. The Committee will advise the Secretary of the Interior on public-private partnerships across all public lands, with the goal of expanding access to and improving infrastructure on public lands and waterways.

“The duties of the Committee are strictly advisory and will consist of, but not be limited to, providing recommendations including:

Policies and programs that:

  • Expand and improve visitor infrastructure developed through public-private partnerships;
  • Implement sustainable operations embracing fair, efficient and convenient fee collection and strategic use of the collected fees;
  • Improve interpretation using technology;
  • Create better tools and/or opportunities for Americans to discover their lands and waters.”

For more information on public/private partnerships

Which will also lead you to a 3-part primer on PPPs.

After reading the above, one must question whose idea was this?

THE BIGGER PICTURE HIDDEN IN TRUMP’S CUTS TO CLINTON AND OBAMA LAND GRABS

“Following up on an April executive order to have Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke review 27 “National Monuments,” Trump on Monday signed an order to cut back the Dec. 2016 Obama-created Bears Ears National Monument in Utah by eight percent (1.35 million acres to 201,876 acres). He also signed an order to cut the 1996 Clinton-created Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument – also in Utah — by nearly 50 percent (1.7 million to 1 million). The remainder of Clinton’s giant plaything will be broken into three separate areas: Grand Staircase National Monument, Kaiparowits National Monument, and Escalante Canyons National Monument.”

All of that leads to something I have been pondering.

Trump has done quite a few things to undo onerous regs and executive orders put in place by Obama, Clinton and Bush. Just today I read in The New American, “One of the very first actions of my administration was to impose at two-for-one rule on new federal regulations. We ordered that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated … as a result, the never-ending growth of red tape in America has come to a sudden screeching and beautiful halt….

“Within our first 11 months, we cancelled or delayed over 1,500 planned regulatory actions — more than any previous President by far….

“And instead of eliminating two old regulations, for everyone new regulation we have eliminated 22 — 22. That’s a big difference. We aimed for two-for-one and, in 2017, we hit twenty-two-for one.”

Woohoo. That is wonderful. A great start. But . . .. But there is a gaping hole. Nothing has been done to stop the onslaught of Sustainable Development (SD) on property rights and the indoctrination of our children in the schools.

Betsy DeVos, the queen of Common Core is Secretary of Education. Our children are being brainwashed, dumbed-down, and turned into useful idiots, at best. Common Core is still going strong, our children are learning the five pillars of Islam, and there isn’t a single right from the Bill of Rights taught in the classrooms.

AFFH, Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing is still alive and destroying property rights through the Department of Housing and Urban Development. People’s life savings and very lives are being destroyed by this as well as neighborhoods are being uprooted, whole classes of people are being dumped in neighborhoods not of their choosing just because of their race or their financial status. What most people do not understand is that AFFH is being embedded into every town, city, county and state the same way Sustainable Development was. When, like SD, AFFH has been put in place everywhere in this country, the name Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing will be dropped (just like SD), and AFFH will be an unnamed cancer eating away at our lives.

Also thanks to Sustainable Development, cities and counties are notifying their residents that they cannot even maintain their properties without getting permission from the planning commissions and abiding by the International Building Codes. Our codes, the best in the world, no longer are acceptable – because every city, county, berg, state in the world must now obey the same standards and rules; it is far easier for the global elite to control us that way.

Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, who loves Asset Forfeiture, is still the AG and is not reining in Asset Forfeiture. He has finally ordered an examination of the Bundy case, but should it have taken him the outrageous infractions exposed by the whistleblower to see there was malfeasance going on there?

There is a lot more, but I think the above shows that, unless things are in the works and will be unveiled soon, we might need to start putting pressure on Trump to do what he said he would do. A lot of the ‘Deplorables’ promised to keep his feet to the fire if he didn’t do the job he promised. If President Trump is to eliminate 20,000 more regulations, if they aren’t to stop Sustainable Development, they will be useless.

I do not want to believe that Trump is just using blue smoke and mirrors to keep us mollified by making all these other good moves while Sustainable Development continues on with no slow down, destroying the greatest country every built. And I am not exaggerating! Sustainable Development should be the first focus for the President right now. We are so close to the tipping point; in fact, we could already be there.

APC: https://americanpolicy.org/2018/01/16/the-definition-of-is/

Read Kathleen Marquardt’s Biography

John Anthony: This Happens if Trump Fails to Rein in HUD 0 (0)

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This Happens if Trump Fails to Rein in HUD – “Rather than address the community’s worries about crime, attorneys and HUD dismissed that issue as racist.”

by John Anthony

If you want to know what will happen to your hometown if Trump allows the Department of Housing and Urban Development to continue its devastating control of local rule, look at Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania. It is the latest community to surrender to HUD’s aggressive tactics.

Much of the chaos we see in America today is designed to stop President Trump from dismantling the federal system of rampant waste, dishonesty, and bullying. The largest “swamp” he must drain, is the embedded federal bureaucracy.

In theory, at least, we can “fire” politicians every two, four, and six years. But federal agency employees can linger for decades, beneath the radar, issuing guidance documents on little understood regulations that are now devastating our communities and property rights.


That is why the administration must work closely with Congress to pass the House and Senate bills, titled, the “Local Zoning Decisions Protection Act of 2017”. Once signed by the President, the new law will outlaw HUD’s worst offenders, its “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” (AFFH) regulation.

 AFFH uses legal actions against communities that accept popular HUD grants, to force them into a bizarre, centrally managed program of regionalism and forced socio-economic integration.

AFFH use of litigation threats is becoming a widespread enforcement tool for the agency.

 Whitehall Township is the most recent victim of HUD’s new legal intimidation. The community, located in the heart of the Lehigh Valley, 90 miles north of Philadelphia, has its own home rule charter. They have their own Mayor, Township Commissioners, and Planning Commission.

 That autonomy and the voice of their voters, means little to HUD.

In February 2014, PathStone, a regional affordable housing developer from the Philadelphia area, proposed purchasing a parcel of land in the Township and constructing 52 (later reduced to 49) affordable housing units in the Loft Project. By May, the Planning Commission rejected the proposal.

 Rather than accept the Commission’s decision and find another location to build, in April 2015, PathStone hired a civil rights law firm who filed a complaint with HUD requesting they investigate Whitehall for a, 

“discriminatory zoning ordinance that discourages the development of affordable, multifamily housing in high opportunity areas.”

The suit claimed, 

“The Zoning Hearing Board denied zoning relief…on the basis of the race, color, national origin, familial status, and disability status of the prospective residents of the housing.”

 HUD was involved because the Township had received $395,000 in Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) since 2009.

But, how were the attorneys and HUD able to interpret the board’s decision as discriminatory?

 The Planning Commission argued that PathStone’s proposal only allowed for one parking space per unit, in violation of zoning laws that called for two. In addition, citizens raised concerns over reduced property values and increased crime.

 PathStone’s attorneys countered that the Commission had previously approved similar zoning relief for the same parcel for a senior citizen’s home. Therefore, they reasoned, any rejection for affordable housing is clearly the result of discrimination.

Their rationale was limited to selective portions of the voters’ issues. Rather than address the community’s worries about crime, attorneys and HUD dismissed that issue as racist. 

But safety and racism are different topics and the citizens’ fears were legitimate. While senior citizen housing rarely raises crime rates, a detailed block-by-block study shows that high density, low-income housing does attract larger numbers of homicides, no matter who lives there.

This should be a real concern for any community.

 Whitehall’s citizens were outraged at PathStone’s and HUD’s heavy-handed tactics and continued to voice their objections to the Lofts, even in the face of threatened lawsuits.

 It was a losing fight. In HUD’s view, resistance to affordable housing is in itself discriminatory and bore the threat of even greater charges.
 
By June of 2016, Whitehall finally caved to the federal government’s pressure. They altered their zoning laws to meet HUD’s demands and agreed to sign a Voluntary Compliance Agreement allowing the project to advance.

As Commissioner Philip Ginder, caught between signing an oppressive agreement voters did not want; and facing mounting lawsuit threats, said before voting, “This is one of the hardest ‘yes’ votes I’ve ever made in my life.

 Among other stipulations, Whitehall ‘voluntarily’ agreed to:

 Defend their zoning changes from third party challenges and,

“…extend its full cooperation throughout the remainder of the planning, application and approval processes relevant to development of The Lofts, and throughout the infrastructure development, building permit process, construction, and initial rent-up phases of The Lofts.”
 
Whitehall had to “actively promote the Lofts by endorsing the development…”

In the biggest sting of all, HUD ordered the Township,
 
“No later than December 28, 2016, to remit the amount of Three Hundred Seventy-Five Thousand Dollars ($375,000.00) to Complainant PathStone.”
 
The payment was in satisfaction for,
 
“PathStone’s claims for monetary compensation, additional carrying costs, out-of pocket expenses and additional staff time related to development of The Lofts from the time of the May 20, 2014, denial by Respondent Zoning Hearing Board, as well as additional payments to the current owner of subject property to reserve PathStone’s purchase rights, the expense of reapplication for PHFA funding in 2015, additional interest on the predevelopment loan for The Lofts, and attorneys’ fees and costs.”


What happened in Whitehall Township can happen in any community that has zoning laws and accepts federal money for fair housing or urban development. Even if AFFH is overturned, as the Whitehall case shows, the agency can claim discrimination for a host of reasons that may or may not be fair to communities. This is why communities must protect their local autonomy and their right to control zoning and land use. 

Community members must stay informed and involved. Learn about HUD and how their grant requirements can alter your town, city, or county. Study the effects of regional sustainable development on local jurisdictional authority, on taxes, and on lifestyles.  Then work with local officials to protect your neighborhoods for now and for future generations.


About the Author: John Anthony, Founder Sustainable Freedom Lab John Anthony is a nationally acclaimed speaker, researcher and writer. Mr. Anthony is the former Director of Sales and Marketing for Paul Mitchell Systems, Inc.  In 1989, he founded Corporate Measures, LLC, a management development firm. In 2012, Mr. Anthony turned his attention to community issues including the balance between federal agency regulations and local autonomy.

In January 2016, Mr. Anthony was a guest at the prestigious Rutgers University School of Management Fellowship Honoring Dr. Louis Kelso.  In March 2016, he was the keynote speaker on HUD and Property Rights at the Palmetto Panel at Clemson University.

John Anthony: The Whitewashing of American Tyranny 0 (0)

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The Whitewashing of American Tyranny – “Suddenly the rights of people to live where they can afford is “exclusionary.”

by John Anthony

While Donald Trump maneuvers to cleanse government’s cesspool, communities face a bigger challenge at home.

Academics, classroom teachers, newspapers and television, movie stars and the Cultural Arts are seducing our children into believing it is their duty to relinquish their rights for a coveted scrunch into the bloated backseat of the global collective.

Like a crafty Tom Sawyer, who made the drudgery of whitewashing Aunt Polly’s fence so glamorous his friends eagerly surrendered their apples, tadpoles and marbles for the honor, our government persuades Americans that loyalty to fairness, the environment and climate change outweighs their rights over their own property.

Today, the government can uproot and relocate entire low-income families into strange neighborhoods merely by manipulating the value of their vouchers.

Our federally controlled education system collects sensitive, personally identifiable data on every public school student in America.  Even their most guarded medical history no longer bears privacy. We are raising generations of children to whom personal property rights have no value. When property rights lack value, human rights vanish.

Today’s young men and women accept as normal, events that two generations ago would have been the illustrator’s palette for a garish digest of Shocking Tales.

The Director of America’s National Security Agency recently admitted that his group regularly spies on Americans capturing metadata the department may easily translate into a log of your private life.
The government now legally sanctions a 35-year old mentally disturbed adult male, at the flick of his internal identity switch, to glide into the bathroom with 11 your year old daughter.

Practices once represented by colorful explosions of primary outrage are now bleached pastels of tacit acceptance. Community members working together can stop these violations. Trump may slow their progress, but we cannot afford to rely on one man. As the only group instructed to govern the governors, our window is closing. Not only is our government the driver behind these affronts, it is near the unstoppable stage where it governs its own will.

The House of Representatives, once the “peoples’ house” that reined in government, is now little more than a vestigial structure. Federal agencies issue 18 times as many laws as Congress and remain unanswerable beyond an abused regulatory “comment period” and a limp Congressional Review Act.

As government authority broadens, our children’s futures wither. Its outrageous claims against our property and our lives increasingly demand compliance. Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College said in a recent speech, that compliance; “means adapting constantly to changing and complex instructions from central authorities, and it means the employment of specialists to interpret the regulations and make sure others conform.”

That conformity is our children’s future. Unless we teach them the meaning of private property and its relationship to their human rights; unless they learn that government is not their ally, agencies like HUD will socially engineer their tomorrows and programs like Common Core will turn mediocrity and conformity, into social and emotional imperatives.

We have a choice.  We can sit by the lamplight and educate our children. In his 1796 Farewell Address, President Washington warned Americans what would happen if government followed man’s natural instinct to grow more powerful; “The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism.”

Thomas Jefferson warned of a consolidation of federal power in an 1821 letter; “when all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.”

Obliging our Founders’ fears, HUD recently distorted the Fair Housing Act granting themselves authority to threaten communities with civil rights violations for failure to assure “income integration” by building affordable housing in affluent areas where low-income families cannot afford to live.

Suddenly the rights of people to live where they can afford is “exclusionary.” When discussed at all, many instructors teach our children that property rights are distinct from human rights. That people have the right to “free speech” and “religion” but the state must have the ability to control property for society’s good.
What is one without the other? 

If the government controls the newsprint enabling the editor to share opinions, then they successfully muffle the speech. A government that controls the distance you can drive your automobile controls how you travel, where you live, and how often you visit your distant family. One United Nation’s document, agreed to by our own government, goes so far as to suggest that because land is unique and crucial, “it cannot be treated as an ordinary asset and controlled by individuals…”  It continues, “public control of land use is therefore indispensable…”

There is no more elegant dissolution of this absurd despotic idea than James Madison’s essay On Property.
In the words of Arnn, noting the government has grown so large that it is a major factor in every aspect of our society; “This [government] is the political crisis of our time. No policy question, with the exception of imminent major war, which we do not have right now, can matter so much.”

Placing government in its proper perspective and teaching our children why property and freedom are inseparable, are the first steps in clearing their minds of the cultural swamp.


About the Author: John Anthony, Founder Sustainable Freedom Lab John Anthony is a nationally acclaimed speaker, researcher and writer. Mr. Anthony is the former Director of Sales and Marketing for Paul Mitchell Systems, Inc.  In 1989, he founded Corporate Measures, LLC, a management development firm. In 2012, Mr. Anthony turned his attention to community issues including the balance between federal agency regulations and local autonomy.

In January 2016, Mr. Anthony was a guest at the prestigious Rutgers University School of Management Fellowship Honoring Dr. Louis Kelso.  In March 2016, he was the keynote speaker on HUD and Property Rights at the Palmetto Panel at Clemson University.