Yeah, this is my long-late response to Alexa Carpenter’s Op-Ed “NH’s Housing Crisis: a Product of Vocal NIMBYs and a Silent Majority“. I agreed to put that Op-Ed up back in February even though I disagreed with it. I emailed her back at the time that she’d get blowback about it and she basically said she didn’t care (“I’m used to the backlash…”). She got some – from our commenters so go read them. This one struck me. While Kevin, I believe, hits it on the head for a bunch of folks “why can’t I help my “own folks” instead of being forced to help those I don’t know?”. A good point but it wasn’t mine in responding to her Op-Ed.
“Affordable” housing is a euphemism for subsidized housing, and the subsidies come from the other property tax payers. I pay to live here and I do not want to pay even more so that someone else can pay less.
No, my point is that Gov Sununu has paid back a large contingent of his political donor class, real estate developers, with new laws that help to override local communities’ sense of themselves and the nascent land use court system that very much tilts the teeter-totter to developers. Sununu and his sycophants have basically brought into the Live Free or Die State the worst of Obama’s AFFH housing policies (which Biden just revived) and what is happening in California and New York.
I hate it. Passionately. The message that Sununu and his proxies, including Alexa Carpenter and her funders “The Residences at Epping Station” went even further. Nice of them to pose with these platitudes:
Helping our teachers to live where they teach, medical personnel to live where they heal, and police and service workers to live where they save lives
Translation: you’re an ugly person if you don’t want them here. And some genius thought that doing a Change.org petition was going to seal part of the deal for them – nice of a commercial entity in demanding permission to despoil a community that doesn’t want it. Low bar, they set for themselves – thus far, “supporters” could only muster up 258 signatures of the paltry 500 they thought would be a show of force.
Yep, this proved what she complains about below – lack of support. The only thing they didn’t outright say is RACIST!
But what’s even uglier is what she wrote if you view it from the respect of who she quoted and how her “My argument trumps those that live in those towns – those selfish people!” was a pile of steaming you know what (reformatted, emphasis mine):
…Considering NH is short of 20,000 units needed to balance the market, this finding should not come as a shock.
However, what is shocking is how much the other third limits development across the state. That’s right, often it’s the minority of opponents who sway a town’s decisions over development, no matter how much broader support exists. Why? Because decisions are made by those who show up, and typically, those who show up for project approvals are homeowners who refuse changes to their neighborhood’s status quo. In fact, 85% of development meeting attendees are opponents, and this leaves a small opportunity for support to shine through, despite its existence. The problem with this is how much it skews the picture of community perception toward development. Despite its distortion, this picture influences the outcome of housing projects all the same.
Let’s discuss this for a few moments even as what came next is worse. So she, and her bosses, don’t like those that take enough time to get involved in their town’s well-being, its character, and its sense of community? The undertone she nuances is that these are selfish people who are only concerned with their own well-being – and their investment in their homes. Sense of the Left, in my opinion, as I have seen that attitude FAR too often from the Left (especially at the newly castrated and pablum-filled Eco-Socialist site called Treehugger. I may not have agreed with their posts but it certainly held rousing discussions! I do miss it). Carpenter goes all flank speed from there in trying to cut off any reasonable comeback that such pushback isn’t “selfish” but IS “self-interest”.
There’s nothing wrong with “conserving” what one has and as I’ve been saying, more and more since Sununu and Carpenter’s cohorts started in with the Royal “We should do what we want” in bullying local towns and townfolks, people in their towns have an unspoken and unwritten right (notice lower case) to covet the existing sense of community without the “buttinsky” attitude whose only end goal is money. They saw a place to either continue to stay in or move in because they loved the place, its look, its feel, and the community bound up in that.
Carpenter doesn’t care.
Sidenote: if they really cared, developers would be using the Habitat for Humanity model of real charity instead of just financial transactions.
And if she really cared, she wouldn’t have made me hate my alma mater even more by quoting the slanted bias of using “privileged” as if she was a snot-nosed college feminist SJW Leftist. Insulting those that count – those that vote in that town – and whipping out the Race Card doesn’t help. Her bolding, not mine
New research from Katherine Einstein, a Boston University political science professor, reinforces these findings. According to Einstein, a distorted picture of public consensus is a staple of the housing approvals process in New England. And recognizing the sway that homeowners have over the development process, Einstein set out to identify the demographics of those who typically attend project meetings, specifically where affordable or multifamily housing is proposed. What she found was that those “who show up are privileged, whiter, older, homeowners, who also overwhelmingly opposed development, with only 15% who showed support.” And this crowd has no problem influencing decisions that impact the wider community.
Sure thing – and she’s quite proud of herself. So I’ll answer with the Leftist Socialist permanent protesters’ anthem “THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!” (repeat 100s of times for effect). She’s upset that those who are more motivated have more cause and interest in influencing the making of such decisions. And if only 15% support such development, they SHOULD lose. That’s what direct democracy looks like. And I’m betting that’s what she and Carpenter are upset about as well.
Too bad.
Do you know what this really wassupposed to accomplish Denigrate those that CARE, about their town and themselves, MORE than those that don’t. Yes, we are older – it wasn’t until I GOT older that I had the time and concentration level to get involved locally (and beyond). Before that, I had my family, young boys and their needs and activities, a career, and older parents to tend to. Younger people, correctly, have other priorities to tend to.
And yes, I’m white – SO WHAT! It’s not like I had any control over it but thank you, Alexa, for quoting someone who used it, not to be accurate, but as a slur.
So what’s the end result of all of this? Land use boards often yield to the wishes of the outspoken, meaning development proposals (outside the scope of single-family homes) are squashed and the inventory remains stagnant.
So you want them to ignore this contingent that cares? That sounds like a real lack of support on your part (unless you bring in your Astroturf mob like many Leftist organizations do), right? And this was just a GREAT capstone in trying to “persuade” people like me – that my main motivation is that I’m FEARFUL!
Sorry, you really want to know what I’m motivated by, Ms. Carpenter? You. Sununu. His hangers-on like Joe Sweeney, Joe Alexander, and Ross Berry support themselves in interfering with other people’s lives and communities via The Law that benefits them and not us.
You see, we want to Live Free – from coercion and bullying. We have an innate Scots-Irish (even if not of that lineage) attitude, dislike and distrust of Government trying to push us around. And that is what is happening here in NH once again – government turning against us.
That dislike and distrust goes to a higher gear when we see the rent-seekers like you trying to use the power of government against us.
Up Yours!
