Democrats Now Targeting To Destroy Suburbs With New ‘Equity’ Zoning Laws & Regulations

FILLER

he Biden Administration and Democrats in New York, Connecticut and other states are fighting local zoning laws in order to build high-rise apartment buildings with “affordable” units in tree-lined, single-family neighborhoods. All in the name of equity, meaning everyone can live in a tranquil suburb, whether they’ve earned the money to pay for it or not.

The Biden Administration announced Jan. 19 that it will require all towns across the U.S. to submit “Equity Plans” showing how they will make it possible for low-income people to live there by providing affordable housing, transportation and other resources. Towns that don’t meet the cookie-cutter requirement for economic diversity will lose federal funding.

No one’s denying there’s a housing shortage. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is pushing some reasonable proposals such as allowing mother-in-law apartments and relaxing environmental restrictions on residential building. However, Hochul’s biggest proposal, the Housing Compact, is another misguided progressive attack on local control and single-family zoning.

It will compel each town and village in the New York metro area to increase its housing stock to meet a uniform, state-imposed target and rezone for high-density housing – apartment buildings – within a half-mile of every MTA train stop.

Say goodbye to quaint downtowns lined with two-story buildings and older houses.  If a town fails to meet state targets, the compact will allow developers to build big in defiance of local zoning boards in almost all cases.

Hochul is seeking legislative approval for her plan by April. Suburban homeowners are battling a powerful alliance of real estate developers in it for the money and social justice warriors determined to end single-family zoning.

Local control will be obliterated. Albany will call the shots on what your town looks like, how much traffic there is and ultimately what your home is worth.

Slate Magazine’s Henry Grabar bashed Hochul’s critics as “a band of recalcitrant, remorseless ne’er-do-wells.” He’s wrong. Their concerns are legitimate. For most people, their home is their biggest asset.

Opponents of single-family zoning are also playing the race card. ERASE Racism President Laura Harding says she’s fighting for a Long Island “free of structural racism and de facto segregation.” The same phony pretext is being trotted out everywhere.

As a Brookings Institution analysis of the 2020 census shows, race isn’t a barrier to suburban living. Blacks are moving to the suburbs at a faster pace than Whites.  Anybody can be suburban. It just takes money – especially in Connecticut. 

The left’s seething hatred of the suburbs is readily apparent in popular culture, where movies regularly portray these tranquil, tree-lined neighborhoods as hotbeds of racism, repression, sexual dysfunction, and hatred. Unless it’s in the hands of a genius like David Lynch, the result is usually tired and stereotyped. For every classic like Blue Velvet (1986) and (1999) and Ordinary People (1980), there’s a ton of garbage like Revolutionary Road (2008), Little Children (2006), Pleasantville (1998), and The Stepford Wives (2004).

Why does the left hate the suburbs? For starters, we tend to vote Republican. Worse still, we’re truly happy out here. The suburban way of life proves people live fuller lives if they are unbothered by central authority and control. We prove government causes way more problems than it solves, and nothing makes the Left angrier than happy, contented people they cannot control.

I would add that nothing proves that everything the left believes in is a lie more than the suburbs do. It’s in the blue cities where all the violence, hate crimes, lousy schools, traffic jams, gun violence, and environmental issues like smog occur. It’s out in the mostly ungoverned suburbs where people of all races get along; where our water, air, and streets are safe and clean; where the schools are functional; where we all own guns, but there’s hardly any gun violence.

So what better way to destroy the suburbs than to turn the suburbs into just another lousy Democrat-run city?

Once Democrats strip the suburbs of everything which makes them special — zoning laws that protect property values and avoid density — that’s the end of the suburbs. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) knows exactly what she’s doing with a new law that will force “each town and village in the New York metro area to increase its housing stock to meet a uniform, state-imposed target and rezone for high-density housing – apartment buildings – within a half-mile of every MTA train stop.”

What happens, then?

The plague of failed cities spreads into these idyllic areas, and Democrats move in, those whose voting patterns ensure even more destruction, especially in the schools. “Say goodbye to quaint downtowns lined with two-story buildings and older houses.” Yep. That’s the master plan.

What’s more, Democrats have climbed into bed with the big developers who cannot wait to enrich themselves by tearing these towns apart.

Nothing destroys a community faster than renters, and I say that as someone who has been a renter. In my little neighborhood, the only stress point is a rental house. Everything else here is placid and serene. But every once in a while, idiots move into that house and make life hard on the people who live nearby. So I can’t imagine what a multi-unit apartment building would do to undermine our way of life, not to mention our property values.

Democrats are locusts.They’ve already consumed and annihilated the cities. Now they are moving to the suburbs.✪

▶️ 13 Minutes 10 Seconds ⭐️ Gary Brown