Not Your Ordinary Welfare Program

Charlotte Laws explains the new group of politically connected welfare bandits:

Inclusionary zoning ordinances and density bonuses—also known as "below market rate" (BMR) housing programs—can negatively impact the community. These affordable housing programs reward developers who earmark a percentage of new homes or condos for those in the low and moderate income brackets by letting them increase density, build taller structures and curtail open space and parking requirements. This can lead to over-crowding and infrastructure headaches for residents in the area.

But "below market rate" (BMR) housing programs are arguably problematic for other reasons. They are inherently unfair, hurt both market-rate and BMR property owners, rely upon an unfounded evaluation of the home ownership situation, and erroneously see the solution to the housing "crisis" as the weaving of a paternalistic safety net across America.

Nets are vital for hairy high-wire acts, but unnecessary—even deleterious--for the recipients of "below market rate" housing programs, who can earn as much as $126,000 per year in parts of Northern California. A New York Times article tells of Marin County woman who "likes nice things: fashionable clothes, dinner out with her husband, a private school for her daughter (and has a household income of)... $111,000," but is unable to buy a home without a 30% "inclusionary zoning discount" in her neighborhood of choice, where properties sell for as much as $1.8 million a piece.

Heh.