Federal "no
growth" blueprint is unrealistic
By Nancie G. Marzulla
web
posted December 3, 2001

Martinez |
When Secretary Mel Martinez took over the reins as the newly installed
head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), he had
little reason to suspect that in addition to heading up the nation's housing
policies, he would also be handed the dubious distinction of being asked
to unleash a 2,000 page blueprint for controlling every aspect of local
land use across America from a "Directorate" located in Washington,
D.C. Unless Secretary Martinez acts to stop it, in the next few days,
what is benignly dubbed the "Legislative Guidebook" will be
jointly issued by HUD and the American Planning Association (APA). The
Guidebook is a comprehensive blueprint of model statutes and planning
guidelines whose goal is nothing less than a centralization of land planning
for state and local governments and elimination of the need for messy
and "inefficient" local land use control.
The Legislative Guidebook is the brainchild of an insular group of no-growth
activists who found fertile soil for their anti-growth agenda at HUD during
the Clinton administration. Flush with over $1.7 million in HUD grant
money, these activists (with the knowledge and input of only a select
few) spent seven years crafting the Guidebook.
Between July 1994 and June 2001, under the leadership of the HUD-APA
"Directorate," the HUD-APA project went through eleven amendments,
and expanded in nature and scope to the voluminous size near-two thousand
page document it is today, filled with generic rhetoric that masks its
true radical intent to federalize local government control and eviscerate
constitutionally protected private property rights. The general public,
as well as minority business owners and small business owners, farmers,
and virtually everyone affected by the Guidelines, were excluded from
the process.
Not surprisingly then, the results of this exclusionary process is a
product which is anti-business and anti-private property rights. Many
provisions in the Guidebook will statutorily take private property rights
without just compensation. One small example of the detailed level of
control embodied in the Guidebook is its treatment of ordinary, commercial
signs, which virtually every small business and restaurant has. After
prescribing uniform size, shape, and color standards by which every sign
is required to look alike, the Guidebook recommends an "amortization"
plan, which will give small business owners a limited period to enjoy
their identical signs before they must be removed altogether, without
payment of just compensation as required by the Constitution.
In contrast to its detailed level of minutiae, the Guidebook can also
be characterized by the sweeping breadth of the land use planning issues
it attempts to uniformly regulate, including: affordable housing, transportation,
urban growth, neighborhood planning, economic development, public services,
state facilities, taxes, zoning and subdivision, environmental policy,
historic preservation, telecommunications and information technology,
among others.
To encourage everyone from State legislatures to town councils to adopt
these uniform standards, the same no-growth activists have convinced some
Congressmen to introduce legislation, the Community Character Act (SB
975) and its House counterpart (HB 1433), which would authorize a grant
program to the tune of $250 million over ten years , earmarked for state
and tribal governments whose land use planning activities are consistent
with the terms and conditions embedded in the Legislative Guidebook.
Adoption of these no-growth laws has proved very expensive for local
residents and homeowners. For example, Portland, Oregon, a model for the
"smart growth" initiative, has gone from being one of the nation's
most affordable cities to one of the least affordable. Moreover, because
the Guidebook's proposals will restrict where people can live, it will
help ensure not only that there is no affordable housing, but no housing
at all.
The Guidebook has been slammed by Representative Richard Pombo, head
of the Congressional Western Caucus, who stated: "The Legislative
Guidebook is a backdoor attempt to squash the rights of private property
owners. We must make sure that we respect the ownership rights of others."
Federal regulations already control far too many aspects of our lives,
and land use decisions too. Hopefully, Secretary Martinez will act to
stop the uncontrolled growth of even more federal hegemony. 
Nancie G. Marzulla is President of the Washington, D.C. based Defenders
of Property Rights.

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