Hello Everyone:
Finally Yours Truly is back in the blogosphere and ready to continue the series on whether the all-American single family home is still the ideal. Mum is back to her usual charming self and all is right at Blogger Headquarters. Before we get started, a few words.
They were the tweets read around the world. The President of the United States telling four females of color, duly elected members of Congress that if they did not like living in America, they can go back to the countries where the came from and fix the problems there. He doubled down today, demanding they apologize to him, Americans, and Israel. He went on rant about Socialism and how the United States will never become a socialist country. There was no question about what The President tweeted, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Rather than get outraged about this naked display of bigotry, here is what Yours Truly has to say,
Since he announced his candidacy for office in 2015, Mr. Donald Trump has made no attempt to disguise his bigotry. The Republican party supported his candidacy, his surrogates kept their mouths shut, and the voters chose him. His defenders are using all sorts of pretzel logic to justify the unjustifiable. Here is a suggestion: circle November 3, 2020 on your calendars and vote. Onward
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| Los Angeles, California 75 percent of residential land is designated for single family homes nytimes.com |
Last Tuesday, July 9, 2019, we talked about the chronic affordable housing shortage on the West Coast and what is being done about it. One solution is SB 50 proposed by state Senator Scott Wiener, which would allow multiple-residence housing units to be built near job centers and transit lines. It would also allow single family homes to be subdivided into as many as four units in order to create denser communities. State Senator Wiener's bill was met by staunch opposition from homeowners who successfully stalled the bill.
Oregon's bill (opb.org; Feb 7, 2019; date accessed July 15, 2019) would also permit single family residences to be subdivided into as many as four units in cities with populations greater than 25,000 and within the Portland metropolitan area; and allow duplexes in cities with at 10,000 people. Despite homeowner opposition, Portland has spent a considerable amount of time and effort planning zoning changes (sightline.org; Sept. 17, 2018; date accessed July 15. 2019). Regardless, the reception for such ideas is better than it was two years ago.
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| Portland, Oregon 77 percent of residential land is for single family homes *Duplexes are permitted on corner lots in single family zones nytimes.com |
laments Oregon state Speaker of the house and author of the new bill. The disconnected between these facts is driving the politics of zoning changes.
Oregon has long regulated urban growth boundaries (Ibid) as a way to protect farmland and green spaces beyond city limits. Nevertheless, many communities have not been too keen to increase density within their boundaries. The running joke in Oregon is that people hate sprawl and density (Ibid). Ms. Kotek admits, At some point, something's got to give (Ibid)
A return to history
More often than not, high-level discussions about the environment, affordable housing or equity come up against more esoteric arguments: "What if some neighborhoods lack enough parking? Or if one person's development shades another's backyard [Ibid; Dec. 7, 2017]? How are apartment buildings more environmentally friendly they replaces all the trees?" (Ibid; June 18, 2019)
Former Minneapolis City Council member Lisa McDonald and part of the Minneapolis for Everyone (minneapolisforeveryone.org; date accessed July 15, 2019), a group opposed to the city's plans told The New York Times,
What we're selling here in Minneapolis--or what our planning department and our city council are selling--is that we're new, we're state of the are, we're cutting-edge, we're virtue signaling (nytimes.com; June 18, 2019)
Of course the reality is different, Ms. McDonald argues that the city is selling itself to developers. She said, "They'll build more market-rate housing" (Ibid). Ms. McDonald doubts that Minneapolis will get more affordable housing--less racism and a more equitable city--in return. (Ibid)
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| Seattle, Washington 81% of residential is zoned for single family homes *City parks and schools are allowed in these zones nytimes.com |
Mr. Kaplan is 70-years-old, old enough to remember this heinous practice, but does not believe that the current opposition to upzoning is motivated by bigotry. He spoke to The Times,
I'm old enough to actually have lived in some that,.... Maybe I'm wrong, but I've grown up here, I have tons of friends in every neighborhood across the city, and I don't get the sense that anybody thinks like that. (nytimes.com; June 18, 2019)
The optimist, Mr. Kaplan believes that the policies originally conceived as exclusionary can be re-orientated toward non-exclusionary ends like housing more residents than the sanitation system can handle. He added,
Zoning has a role,... in addressing land-use regulations for the common good
Zoning ordinances do have a useful role but Mr. Kaplan's optimism about re-oriented toward non-exclusionary ends like limiting the number of residents in a community so not to overtax the sanitation system does have the odor of exclusionary.
This brings up the debate over the scale of the common good and the conflict between the common good in a particular neighborhood zoned for single family residences and the common good of the city, as a whole, where housing is scarce or segregated. An uneasy compromise in Seattle was reached in March of this year when it upzoned 6 percent of its single family land (sightline.org; Mar. 22, 2019; date accessed July 15, 2019).
Tomorrow we will finish up our discussion on whether single family zoning ordinances still matter.
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