Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Smart Growth Legislation Discriminates Against Less Affluent Homeowners
The Las Vegas Review Journal asks: "...what exactly is smart growth, who's behind it and how does it affect local property owners?"Reporter Hubble Smith's answer includes quotations from a Capital Research Center report by James Dellinger and the National Center's own Ryan Balis.
An excerpt:
...Smart-growth activists say suburban areas are being developed too quickly, without preserving ample open space. By restricting housing development, shopping malls and highways, opponents of sprawl say cities can grow in a "smart" way.Read it all here.
But Dellinger said these proposals limit consumer choices and trample on property rights.
Smart-growth legislation also discriminates against new and less affluent homeowners who are priced out of the housing market when land-use restrictions cause property values to skyrocket, Dellinger wrote in a report for Capital Research Center co-authored by Ryan Balis, policy analyst at the National Center for Public Policy Research.
"The concept of incumbent players, people who are already established versus people who are aspirants and recent college grads, all of a sudden someone wants to draw the line differently on what it takes to become a homeowner," Dellinger said from his Washington office.
Homeowners with property values in mind have supported many of the smart-growth policies by ideologically committed environmental groups, he said. Like most activists on the left, these groups are often masked as local government watchdogs, easily identifiable by catchy acronyms.
CRC researchers found that smart-growth proponents include Hollywood activists and liberal organizations. Environmental groups such as Sierra Club, Surface Transportation Policy Project, Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Trust for Historic Preservation are among smart growth's champions...
Posted by Amy Ridenour at 12:19 AM
