In England, if you want to start a fight in a bar (or a Pub), say something nasty about the monarchy or the nearest football team. In New Hampshire, it’s housing and zoning. We’ve offered our pages to both sides with a few takers because it’s a complex issue, and there are a lot of opinions about what this bill or that bill means. Not everyone agrees there is a problem while others can’t agree on the solution.
Some towns have intractable zoning boards that need the state to spank them, while others feel infringed by fresh demands from Concord. In my opinion, whatever happens will not solve the problem (if we even agree on what that is), and government intervention will likely exacerbate the situation.
Ultimately, no one will be satisfied. Neither liberty nor some amorphous common good will be served. But we might make things worse.
Connecticut is addressing their so-called problem Housing Problem by forcing every town in the state to meet its cookie-cutter demands local interest or character be damned.
On Saturday, the Connecticut legislature passed a bill, H.B. 5002, which should be called the Destroy Connecticut Towns Act. It’s headed to Gov. Ned Lamont’s desk for a signature. The new law dictates how many low-income and moderate-income apartments each Connecticut town must provide, and mandates that towns also foot the bill for the schools, parks, public transportation, and other services low-income residents will need. Local taxes will soar.
The bill explicitly says its purpose is to ensure “economic diversity” in each town. This is about social engineering, not remedying housing shortages.
This is Connecticut so it gets worse.
Connecticut lawmakers are nixing local rule. Ordinances that protect the appearance of a town have to be overruled. The bill states that multifamily buildings of up to 24 units will no longer have to provide off-street parking. Envision cars lining every residential street.
Towns also will be forced to welcome vagrants who want to sleep in parks and public lots. The bill outlaws “hostile architecture,” meaning park benches with armrests and divided seating, or stone walls with spikes on top that deter sleeping in the rough.
Instead, the bill launches a program of mobile showers and mobile laundry services on trucks to serve the homeless wherever they choose. Picture the mobile showers pulling up to Greenwich Common Park on the town’s main street, or Waveny Park in New Canaan.
No one is suggesting things like that in New Hampshire, but here’s the rub. Once you give the state carte blanche to meddle with local zoning, there is no guarantee that some future Democrat legislature won’t do exactly the same as the donkeys in CT. Sorry, I mean to say you can guarantee it; They will the first chance they get.
I know, some say, well, you wanted the state interfering in local control over gun rights. Yeah. Because gun rights are natural rights, the state exists to protect. Towns don’t have the right to deny you that right, nor do states, by the way.
As for the property rights, allowing towns to seize your property if you don’t pay the rent (property taxes) seems like the bigger problem and an actual States interest—the natural right you ought to be protecting. Nitpicking about accessory dwelling units looks a lot like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic in that context, as does pandering to developers who will charge whatever rents the market will bear for their new housing projects – as in, the word affordable won’t be able to find the word housing, which, if I’m not mistaken, was the point.
I know, the 425 legislators are working diligently to thread that needle.
Has the bar fight started yet?
