Federal "no growth" blueprint is unrealistic

By Nancie G. Marzulla
web posted December 3, 2001

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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