NEWS FLASH: Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus are launching a new “affordable price” marketing strategy for disadvantaged low-income customers. According to retail lobbyists the California Assembly is fast tracking a bill to enable pre-qualified needy individuals to purchase everything from designer Louis Vuitton handbags to jewelry items including Rolex watches.
As a Carlsbad resident you clearly prefer to live here near the beaches and blue Pacific views rather than in Escondido, El Cajon, Hemet or Cucamonga. Government mandates and subsidies for multi-unit affordable residential housing projects here make about as much sense as the above fictitious, hyperbolic NEWS FLASH!
Mortgage brokers define affordable housing to be the monthly payment for the rent, lease, or ownership of residential property that does not exceed one-third of the combined income of its residents. The size of this payment is dictated by the underlying local market value of related, recently purchased residential property and the average earning power of its residents.
History has shown that residential development in lower demand, lower priced but growing markets, has successfully met the need for affordable housing and prosperity of its residents. I’m sure many of Temecula’s earliest residents would have rather lived in Carlsbad, however, those who moved there have done well without taxpayer subsidies and market meddling actions by our State and local governments.
Local governments are increasingly implementing Sacramento Laws to comply with State Housing & Community Development (HCD) enforcement actions to fast trac high density affordable investor/developer-built housing projects. Along with compliance comes the incentive of massive State funding allocations to boost local agency budgets. Such involuntary developments in more affluent locations under the guise of promoting fairness and equity in housing make about as much sense as giving EBT benefits to members of the La Jolla Country Club.
Affordable housing projects in high-end real estate markets have obvious strategic value to socialist political operatives seeking to boost their base of voters. The associated funding from Sacramento to local city jurisdictions passes through many separate hands when disbursed, from social workers to property managers and various non-governmental and other supporting organizations besides the project’s developers and union shop construction workers. Shouldn’t there be more transparency into these disbursements to make sure that there are no conflicts of interest among its many recipients? Shouldn’t the initial and ongoing costs per needy resident be subject to common sense cost versus benefit public scrutiny?
Affordable multi-unit housing creates inflated local prices, mortgage and property tax payments and related leases and rents for all properties that would otherwise not exist. In cases where multiple adjacent single-family homes from older neighborhoods are purchased by deep pocket investor/developers and rezoned for multi-unit projects, there is even more upwards price pressure. Young families cannot compete in a market against such purchasing power. Entitlements enabling low-income people to live in higher-end markets push affordability out of reach for many others who could never qualify for State sponsored housing entitlements.
How can government market meddling actions make logical sense, especially considering their costly side effects on other local properties beyond just upward price pressures? Can you think of anyone who would prefer living next to a massive new multi-unit seven story housing development rather than a remodeled or existing home like theirs, especially if they have lived in their home for many years?
Affordable high density housing developments create negative quality of life consequences also for those beyond adjacent neighborhoods. These projects place undue wear and tear on existing local infrastructure including roads, utilities and recreational facilities, requiring increased service and maintenance costs. The added population imposes additional local operational stress on the School District, and on the City’s police, fire, and recreational departments. What about gaining the approval of citizen voters in a local jurisdiction’s electorate before green lighting such developments?
Are local governments and the many other facilitators of affordable housing really working for the benefit of the disadvantaged or are they self-serving opportunists? Without transparency into the flow of money to each recipient and the related value add contributions there can be no accountability to local citizens. Until then affordable housing will continue to look and smell like racketeering and the extortion of local citizens and other taxpayers.
There would be no need for accountability if we just put a stop to it!