Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Penn Station? Why build a new one, when we don't need the old one!
Monday, July 20, 2015
The Market Diner, soon to close
There's another one up the street, but it's not as good. Alas.
That's some ambiguous law
The fundamental mistake in Mount Laurel was to leave intact the local zoning laws that kept out low income residents, and instead force the township to come up with positive programs to create exceptions to its basic zoning wall—which it did, after a fashion, by rear guard actions that included designating for the new housing a wetland located behind an industrial park far removed from water and sewer connections. Ultimately, when affordable housing was built in Mount Laurel, few members of minority groups wanted to stray so far from their home base. Local widows occupied a large number of the units.I never really understood how zoning was compatible with property rights. I guess the disaster extends further than I thought.
The sad truth is that this unbroken level of failure will be taken to a new level by HUD’s Final Rule. Yet HUD is unable to explain how the huge conditions attached to its grants will build a single unit of new housing for anyone anywhere. What is needed is a complete reorientation in approach that starts from the proposition that it is far easier and more sensible to remove barriers to entry than it is to subsidize forced entry by judicial decree once those local barriers are allowed to remain in place. Indeed, the only winners out of HUD’s new initiative are government administrators, lawyers, and pro-housing activist groups that salivate at the prospect of hauling the next Westchester County into court.
Labels: law
