OPINION:
President Trump is considering declaring a “housing emergency.” It would be the first such declaration since the Great Recession. It may give him more tools to address high costs, but it could also play into the hands of the political left.
The president is right to acknowledge the real challenges younger Americans are facing in their attempts to achieve lifestyles similar to, if not better than, those of their parents’ generation. Homeownership remains a genuine marker of success in this country, as late conservative activist Charlie Kirk recently pointed out in a column.
Republicans must make it clear, however, that certain interventions in the housing market are acceptable and others are dangerous. Advocating for so-called affordable housing has been a long-standing tactic of Democrats and a critical component of their political calculus: Force more high-density housing into suburban communities to win more elections.
It’s the reason Democrats have been trying to strip zoning authority from local municipalities for years and taking them to court over alleged housing discrimination.
New coalitions of AstroTurf groups pop up all the time, urging suburban counties and state governments to make so-called affordable housing a priority. However, affordable housing is another canard of the left. It’s like calling abortion “women’s health care” or the castration of children “gender affirming” procedures.
What it really means is low-income, often subsidized housing fueled by big tax breaks for developers to build high-density projects. It’s a scheme, in many respects, to change the political character of suburban communities.
It’s not a coincidence that California is considering buying swaths of the Pacific Palisades community that has been devastated by fire for low-income housing. They do it everywhere.
Conservatives should pay close attention to their planning boards and legislatures. Attempts by Presidents Obama and Biden to regulate zoning on a national level failed. Now, Republicans are increasingly doing their bidding.
In Texas, grassroots groups claim the state has a deficit of 300,000 housing units. As a result, the Republican-controlled Legislature stripped local municipalities of key zoning powers to spur an explosion in development.
In North Carolina, where Republicans control both houses of the General Assembly, lawmakers just stripped local communities of the ability to downzone properties. Another bill, the Parking Lot Reform and Modernization Act, contemplates removing mandatory minimums for parking spaces for developments statewide.
Republican-controlled Knox County, Tennessee, is a wildly popular destination for Americans fleeing high-tax, dysfunctional blue states. Activists there are calling for 10,000 new residential units in the name of affordability. The leafy suburbs of Knoxville now have dozens of new residential developments, including rentals, multistory apartment buildings and homes built virtually on top of one another.
In Beaufort, South Carolina, where housing activists also claim a deficit of 10,000 units, local columnist Erich Hartmann, a New York escapee, recently wrote a brilliant piece about overdevelopment there. He called “throwing warm bodies at” communities “lazy economics, dressed up in glossy Power Points and a false patina of inevitability.”
Republicans beware: No locality that has increased its density has become more conservative and less liberal, nor has it become more affordable for homeowners. The left understands this very well.
People are expensive. Property tax receipts from condos, apartments and even single-family homes, built arm’s length from one another, do not remotely foot the bill for their fiscal impact. That means taxes in these areas inevitably go up.
Cops, schools, teachers, roads, firefighters and parks require tax money. The average school building today costs more than $50 million. The average police officer makes $60,000 annually, plus decades of legacy costs.
Housing moratoriums are not the answer either. Communities need to grow. They need to grow smartly, though, not lurch wildly toward the future because of political pressure, activism or demand forces.
States and municipalities should emphasize promoting their communities for economic development to increase the tax base rather than dubiously affordable housing that ultimately leads to higher property taxes.
Here’s what the president and other Republicans should do about the cost of housing.
Continue to push for lower interest rates and programs that provide generous tax incentives for first-time homebuyers buying starter homes that temporarily reduce a homebuyer’s federal income tax liability.
In every city where high-density housing should be built, underused and abandoned properties must be prioritized for redevelopment.
Prevent LLCs from buying homes that are not being used as primary residences.
Address price gouging at colleges and universities putting millions into debt for degrees they don’t really need and often don’t use.
Advance policies that allow young people to save more for down payments for first homes, tax-free.
Streamline the process of buying a home and provide closing cost assistance for those with good credit.
All these make much more sense than allowing developers to go hog wild on the suburbs.
Leadership requires an appreciation of threats to the quality of life and the courage to resist being cowed by special interests intent on fundamentally changing communities.
It should be painfully obvious to elected officials in Washington and Republicans across the country that unsustainable growth is not a path to affordability. It directly threatens it, and the political stability in many places has ensured that communities are desirable.
Don’t fall into the trap.
• Tom Basile is the host of “America Right Now” on Newsmax TV, a Washington Times columnist and an author.
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