Review and Critique of Massachusetts Law 40B Essay

The chapter of this book takes us on a tour of our government and housing policies through the twentieth century and how they affected our lives. The first time the American government started intervening with housing was in 1918 when Congress gave 110 million for two programs for housing war workers. Some people, like Senator William Calder of New York, felt that the government was not made to build houses and saw early housing acts like these as opposite to what the government should be doing with it 's power. Despite these feelings

In Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374 (1994), building a parking lot will increase the quantity and rate of storm-water flow from the property, thus keeping the floodplain free from the development would likely confine the pressures on Fanno Creek created by the new development. However, this was not enough for the city; the city wanted the land for itself. According to Justice Rhenquist, “the city must make some effort to quantify its findings in *396 support of the dedication it asks for” (Dolan v. City of Tigard 1994, 5). San Jose’s law does not solve the issue of increasing low-income housing, but instead harms entrepreneurs. The City of San Jose has made no effort to meet its burden to show that developers of new homes are somehow responsible for the astronomical prices of housing in the city. The law is an impediment to growth, an interference with the free market and an exceedingly expensive cost-per-unit way of integrating lower incomes into high land-value

The utilization of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit or LIHTC has had an overall positive effect on housing for low-income families in the United States. Four key outcomes of the LIHTC are: First, there is less likelihood of segregation within the tax-credit housing than in the government provided section 8 and government-subsidized voucher programs (Schwartz, p. 115). Second, the purpose of the program, which was to subsidize mixed income housing to low and working class families, is provisionally being met (Khadduri, Buron, & Lam, p. 10). Third, through decentralization of the implementation of the LIHTC program the federal government allowed the state governments more latitude in the dissemination of the tax credits to appropriate developers (Furman Center, p. 2). Finally, there is a correlation between the areas where LIHTC housing properties are developed in the impact on the sounding region. This correlation is both positive and negative in nature, but heavily is judged on the region that the LIHTC is built in and as to whether it is in an urban center, suburb, or in the metro areas (Deng, pp. 46-48). These four outcomes will guide the body of this paper about the overarching theme of LIHTC as a policy tool as opposed to section 8 housing or government provided housing.

Many large cities are experiencing skyrocketing rental/housing price because of the excessive demand and more importantly, the scarcity of land. San Francisco, as one of the most important financial centers in the world, is facing a serious dilemma due to its inflated rental/housing prices; people’s dissatisfaction over the government grow as they are excluded from the access to proper housing. San Francisco has the highest rents of any large city in the United States, which makes people, especially from low and medium income group, hard to acquire housing near their workplaces and force to commute from other regions of Bay area into the city. In other words, the high housing prices are pushing people as well as the productive industry out of the city. While people are accusing the government of being responsible for the failure of housing since it underestimates the rate of population growth, which leads to a shortage in the housing market. However, statistic shows that San Francisco actually built more than 30 percent more housing units per capita than New York City and Los Angeles in 2014. (Henry Grabar, 2015) It is because such shortage is artificially created by the policy makers to constraint land use, hence, increasing the supply of housing does not efficiently decrease the housing. The fundamental cause of this imbalanced housing market is the poor allocation of land use.

According to Jack Poe, master of science real estate appraisal and state certified real state appraiser in Texas, “According to Babcock’s classic study, the primary effect of Houston’s lack of zoning has been…high income neighborhoods have been preserved by the employment of private covenants and low income neighborhoods have sought in-home commercial development (like a small repair shop) as a way to add value to otherwise low value homes. (Babcock 1966, P. 28).” What all this means to the modern developer in Houston is that they have more freedom to develop what they perceive is needed. The remedy to Houston’s continuing discourse over zoning is a democratic zoning process that is not completely laissez-fair in its approach, as currently exists with the no zoning policy, but remains participatory in order to safeguard the “neighborhood commons” whilst still maintaining this membership and stewardship of the land. The no zoning land policy, as it currently stands in Houston, in part meets Aldo Leopold’s criteria for the land ethic because the citizens are members of the land and it is treated as a shared land-community rather than a commodity controlled by government official(s) or political elites. However, to meet the criteria for the land ethic in whole, it must incorporate a flexible zoning policy that would seek to protect the “neighborhood common” (citizens interests and resources) while still respecting the land-community, which Olmsted values so

Residential, commercial and industrial development is the largest contributors to landscape change in the state of New Jersey. When buildout occurs in one region, development pressure begins in another, virtually insuring the Megalopolis concept of one huge urban corridor stretching between Boston and Washington D.C. Year after year, farmland dwindles, roads become congested, and more residents are left to compete for diminishing natural resources. Desperate measures and newer technologies are incorporated to replace poor planning and lack of vision on behalf of decision-makers caught between competing interests. When the long term health and wellbeing of the established population and the short term gain of a

Throughout the years, social classes have been bolder where people distance themselves from the poor creating buildings, parks, areas that can’t be afforded by the poor. These approaches are theoretically known as obstructive agreements, zoning regulations, building codes, and political regulator over extents of the regions of a nation. With these methods, sections are made within towns which dictate the areas that are only accessible to the middle to high class and areas that could be inhabited by the low class people.

Furthermore, it also represents a great compromised to those who advocate for it, because while communities might be facing the changes done by it, there would still be parcels of land entrusted to community stewardship. Right now Austin is currently just doing single plots of land, but what if other trusts invested in whole city blocks or neighborhoods? Such in areas like Detroit, where housing is affordable and in need of community investment that will give back, whole areas could be possibly saved from losing their character and identity in the process. This is in a way, responsible gentrification because individual communities themselves as well as their residents taking control of their communities and not outside speculators. According of Melora Hiller the executive director of the Community Land Trust Network, other cities such as Baltimore, Maryland are forming trusts to turn vacant homes for the homeless, so not only are these helping the alleviate the fears of lower income people they are also helping to fight back against a social issues that have long been ignored. Therefore, this source was very informative for my paper, because it helped to shape my part of my solution for gentrification, which is we need more individuals and communities to take

Many neighborhoods in America are composed of people predominately of the same social class and race. When there is an increase of middle-class or wealthier people moving into deteriorating areas, it often creates a process of renewal and rebuilding that displaces the poorer residents. This is called gentrification. When someone moves into a house and increases the curbside appeal it makes the neighborhood more desirable. In turn, it raises the overall cost of real estate within the community, which author Daniel Hertz argues it results in “people can't move to the neighborhoods to which they'd like to move, and are stuck in places with worse schools, more crime, and inferior access to jobs and amenities like grocery stores”. Hertz’s insight on gentrification is that people who are more financially secure benefits from the improvement and raised value of a neighborhood while those who are struggling are increasingly limited in the options they have to move into safer and connected neighborhoods.

The cutting of funding for housing services has resulted in less housing stability for individuals and families while putting families at risk to face poverty and homelessness. The government and housing providers are no longer making the needs of individuals and families a priority or even attempt to address the housing needs and challenges these individuals face. Instead, the government, market housing owners, and management have been tearing down housing complexes and replacing them with condominiums, rather than investing in repairs, renovations, and restructuring of the housing properties.

Such a model ought to be applied to blighted neighborhoods throughout America. In a city like Flint where municipal services are greatly constricted by a weak tax base, it is notable that many of the Genesee County Land Bank's programs aim to address blight at little cost, often relying on citizens' dedication to preserving their own neighborhoods to function. For example, homeowners adjacent to abandoned land bank-owned lots have the option of purchasing these lots for a small fee plus the foreclosure year's property taxes. By rebranding vacant lots as useful property, some of the stigma of blight is eliminated. The negative effects of empty lots on crime and property values can be mitigated when invested citizens own and maintain these lots. For those citizens who do not want the extra tax burden of buying side lots, the Adopt-A-Lot program encourages people to take care of nearby abandoned properties on a volunteer basis, achieving a similar effect.

The ambiguous nature of the term “planning”, as it relates to land use, is historically tied to the practice of zoning. Zoning in the US came about in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to protect the interests of property owners. The practice was found to be constitutionally sound by the Supreme Court decision of Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co.in 1926. Soon after, the Standard State Zoning Enabling Act gave authority to the states to regulate land use. Even so, the practice remains controversial today. The figure below shows the timeline of the evolution of land use planning which has undergone a paradigm shift from being focused to economics to a more holistic one, which now covers economy, environment and socio- economic. Each

Another tool that can be used to stimulate development and has been proven successful when implemented in the correct situation, is the use of tax-increment financing (TIF). The basic concept is to divert future property tax revenue increases from a region or a development to a fund that can be used to finance construction or renovation projects. For TIF’s to be successful sources of funding, “the TIF financing mechanism is purposefully designed to help raise property values” (Greenbaum, 2014). As a result, this method of financing is most beneficial in areas that are run down and would otherwise be left undeveloped. The Stapleton Colorado redevelopment is an example of how this strategy can be used to help finance the construction of communities that provide housing for all income levels. Through the use of $462 million dollars in TIF funds, the Denver Urban Renewal Authority (DURA) has helped finance the conversion of the old Stapleton Airport site into over 12,000 affordable residential units (RenewDenver.org, nd.). While controversial, TIF financing has proven to be effective when used correctly. For this reason, it should be considered as an option for funding affordable housing, especially in blighted areas or those that would otherwise be left undeveloped.

Barbara Coyle McCabe describes homeowner’s associations (HOAs) as the new private governance in the United States (Nelson, 2011, pp. 546). Private neighborhoods are smaller governments within the larger local governments in which they reside. They have their own unique political and administrative structure that includes elections, regulatory control, and a unique form of “taxation” (Nelson, 2011, pp. 546)

There are several local barriers to housing, and they have actually intensified over the years. Local and national indicators support different observations of housing researchers, and different practitioners. For example, local researchers examining proxy measures found that barriers to housing development have actually increased from 1970 to 1990, and still continue to rise. Researchers have continued to find the barriers to housing development— through the evident increases between home prices and construction costs. The vast majority of the nations largest cities are feeling the big crush of sharply increased housing cost, which also contribute to the outpacing of wages. For example, In 1960, Los Angeles was zoned to accommodate about