By Attorney Heiner Giese, RPA Legal Counsel

Link to Article from the New York Times

Excerpt from article:

Our next president could do much to unwind America’s housing shortage, which has its roots in regulations enacted by innumerable municipalities. But “not in my backyard” towns won’t start building out of the goodness of their hearts. To unleash enough new building to bring affordability, we need to dust off our history books and remember how this country raised the legal alcohol drinking age. The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 demanded states raise the minimum age to buy or publicly possess alcohol to 21 — or face a reduction in federal highway funds. The threat of losing such funds is a big stick.

Not all of the NIMBY crowd are mid-to-upper class suburbanites seeking to "preserve and protect" their leafy, single family neighborhoods from an influx of noisy tenants who'd be moving into the newly-built (thanks to zoning changes) 12-family on the corner.

Recent example from Milwaukee's inner city: A typical block might have been built 80 years ago with 10 single family houses on one side of the street. Now perhaps half the houses are gone (maybe all of them if this were Detroit) due to urban blight and housing crash foreclosures. Affordable housing advocates have proposed putting a 12-family on one of the corners where two duplexes used to stand. It would be by a non-profit developer using some govt grants.

Waaait a minute!! Say the owners of the remaining houses next to that vacant site. Go gentrify somewhere else! The local alderman is now also opposed. The story hits the news.

The sad truth is that new RENTERS are often not welcomed by existing HOMEOWNERS. Another example of that is the proposal to prevent investors from buying single families to rent out. They're destroying the American dream of home ownership! Let the renter who otherwise might occupy one of Blackrock's investment single families move in to a nice, new 12 family -- the one on a bus line being built on the vacant lot behind the new Walmart.