Hi All. As discussed and voted on in Saturday's meeting, we will edit this draft resolution against the moratorium and send it out as a press release by the end of the month. Please post your changes and suggestions.
Market Rate Moratorium in The MissionResolution Whereas: restrictiveland development policies like zoning and rules allowing any special interestparty to delay or prevent a project for any reason have led to the highesthousing prices in the nation.
Therefore be it resolved that: TheLibertarian Party of San Francisco urges city officials to ease up on zoningrestrictions and reduce the opportunities for interference of property rights. Whereas: theundermining of property rights by government bureaucrats and neighborhoodbusybodies has increased the risk of development in The City, so developersdemand economic compensation in the form of higher prices.Therefore be it resolved that: The Libertarian Party of San Franciscoencourages city officials to recognize the benefits of property rights toencourage more development, if feasible, so the stock housing increases andprices drop. Whereas: The Cityalready owns so much vacant and underutilized land that the San Francisco CivilGrand Jury considered the problem important enough to investigate in 2013.Therefore be it resolved that: The Libertarian Party of San Franciscoencourages city officials to work with what they’ve got rather than look fornew properties to acquire, which will require costly bonds. Whereas: TheMission has been home to many different ethnic groups of settlers over theyears, and the voluntary movement of residents in and out of that neighborhoodhas worked well to build a rich and diverse history of that neighborhood.Therefore be it resolved that: The Libertarian Party of San Franciscoencourages the voluntary movement of people to increase their mobility insociety and opposes any efforts by governmental officials to protect thecurrent residents of The Mission—or any neighborhood—from a changing world. Whereas: it isinherently unfair to any business that has already invested significant amountsof time and money going through the convoluted approval process to change therules midstream.Therefore be it resolved that: The Libertarian Party of San Francisco urgescity officials and voters to oppose a moratorium on market rate housing and to allowdevelopers who have played by the rules to complete their projects and increasethe supply of housing in The City.
Thanks!Aubrey
Nicely done….approved without modification.
Mike
According to an Examiner article published Sunday (see below), a housing moratorium may not even be on the fall ballot. My best guess is that with three weeks to go till the deadline for turning in signatures, they won't make it. Even with a lot of supporters, that's a very tight window to coordinate the collection of all those signatures.
This echoes what I said at our meeting Saturday about it being better to wait and see. Nevertheless, since we voted to go ahead with a resolution, I suggest an additional Whereas/Therefore paragraph based on a sentence in the article describing some of what the moratorium initiative being contemplated for the ballot would do (see boldface text in Aubrey's document below):
During the moratorium The City would be required to create a plan by Jan. 31, 2017, to ensure at least 50 percent of all new housing was affordable to those with middle to low incomes and to ensure current residents get priority to live in those units.
I also propose adding the language "making them even more difficult" to the paragraph in the resolution stating:
Whereas: it is inherently unfair to any business that has already invested significant amounts of time and money going through the convoluted approval process to change the rules midstream by adding yet more hurdles.
The reason for adding these five words is that in many public policy debates we want to "change the rules midstream" in ways that make them less restrictive! For instance, allowing rideshare startups like Sidecar, Lyft and Uber to do business without abiding by all the convoluted regulations that current taxi companies and taxi drivers have had to deal with. Such positive changes going forward should not be held hostage to the fact that some people have already suffered under more onerous current policies, otherwise government regulations could never be loosened!
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
Hi Aubrey and All,
I second Mike and "vote" for approving without modification.
The idea is to issue a professional press release indicating where the LPSF stands on even more interference with the market as regards to housing. The principles expressed in the resolution hold true regardless of whether there is a moratorium on the November ballot or not.
Although I agree with Starchild that Supervisor Campos' moratorium proposal smacks of racial/cultural preference, including words such a "xenophobic" in the resolution in my view is more inflammatory than it needs to be. I personally prefer professional, fact based writing.
Also, I just took a look at the new and improved San Francisco Examiner. It was like reading Pravda or the Peking Review. So, I would prefer to leave their name out of our resolutions. I suggest sticking to LPSF viewpoints only, without bringing in outside players.
Speaking of the San Francisco Examiner, they are a good source of information as to what our City Leaders are up to. Lately, the proposals should cause the blood flowing through your veins to turn into ice. Lots of focus on housing, and it appears that the end game is to have a city almost 100% owned by government. I suggest a lot more writing from the LPSF either in the form of resolutions, letters to the editors, opinion pieces, Facebook posts, etc. etc., reminding the general public that housing is only a part of what is needed when a city grows. We are mortgaging our future financing subsidized housing; and ignoring infrastructure, education, and limited resources such as water and taxpayers' money.
Marcy
Marcy,
Mike hadn't seen my proposed changes when he wrote that, so it doesn't seem appropriate to "second" his approval of what Aubrey wrote in the context of rejecting my suggestions. Also, when responding to what someone (in this case me) wrote, it's a good idea to include that text in your reply, as it makes it easier to follow the thread of a conversation that way.
Regarding the specifics, I didn't say anything about racial preferences. Xenophobia just means fear of outsiders -- and I think that fear is highly evident in this whole debate about housing in SF. Blaming migrants to the city like newly arrived tech companies and workers, etc., is rampant. So I have to disagree with the implication that what I said is not "fact based", and I don't think it's too inflammatory. Such an ass-backward initiative deserves a strong response.
It seems ironic to me that you don't want to mention the Examiner -- hoping to minimize their influence by not mentioning them seems like a much more effective strategy with regard to the proposed moratorium itself (what I was getting at when I suggested waiting until if/when they get something on the ballot to respond), than it does with regard to the city's free, local daily newspaper. (And yes, I have noticed they've gotten more left-leaning since the demise of the Bay Guardian -- I'm sure that's no coincidence.)
You didn't say anything about my other proposed change, adding the words "by adding yet more hurdles" (not the phrase "making them even more difficult", as I initially penned, and forgot to change in my explanatory paragraph). Do you have any reasons for disliking that?
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
You guys can hash it out if you want...happy to accept whatever you work out.
Mike
Hi Starchild,
My bad that I did not respond to both yours and Aubrey's post separately, as I should. Sorry.
Sorry also that I neglected to mention I am totally OK with either the adding yet more hurdles or making them even more difficult sentences.
The rest of my "vote" stands as I indicated.
Marcy
I don’t really have any objection to the sentiments expressed in Aubrey’s “resolution”. I don’t really like the “resolution" format as we are not resolving to do something. We are expressing our opinion on an issue, but I haven't had time to rework it.
I will ill on Monday (requiring a trip to the hospital) and later I had to prepare for the annual meeting of the condo association (I am the treasurer and had to give a speech).
Les Mangus
Hi All. Thanks for the comments. So much for getting this done by the end of June. I'm finally back to "normal" after Pride and working on old business. I like Starchild's addition of "by adding yet more hurdles" to the final point, and since there were no objections, I have added those words below. On the additional point about outsiders and xenophobic sentiment, the principle about treating everyone equally under the law might register with the "fairness" crowd, so I have added it in, but I deleted the words "according to a June 14 San Francisco Examiner article" per Marcy's objection to bringing in outsiders, especially of the "Peking Review" ilk.
Please review this for the last time and comment so I can get it sent out.
Market RateMoratorium in The Mission Resolution Whereas: restrictiveland development policies like zoning and rules allowing any special interestparty to delay or prevent a project for any reason have led to the highesthousing prices in the nation.Therefore be it resolved that: The Libertarian Party of San Francisco urgescity officials to ease up on zoning restrictions and reduce the opportunitiesfor interference of property rights. Whereas: theundermining of property rights by government bureaucrats and neighborhoodbusybodies has increased the risk of development in The City, so developersdemand economic compensation in the form of higher prices.Therefore be it resolved that: The Libertarian Party of San Franciscoencourages city officials to recognize the benefits of property rights toencourage more development, if feasible, so the stock housing increases andprices drop. Whereas: TheCity already owns so much vacant and underutilized land that the San FranciscoCivil Grand Jury considered the problem important enough to investigate in2013.Therefore be it resolved that: The Libertarian Party of San Franciscoencourages city officials to work with what they’ve got rather than look fornew properties to acquire, which will require costly bonds. Whereas: TheMission has been home to many different ethnic groups of settlers over theyears, and the voluntary movement of residents in and out of that neighborhoodhas worked well to build a rich and diverse history of that neighborhood.Therefore be it resolved that: The Libertarian Party of San Franciscoencourages the voluntary movement of people to increase their mobility insociety and opposes any efforts by governmental officials to protect thecurrent residents of The Mission—or any neighborhood—from a changing world. Whereas: The Libertarian Party opposes nativist,anti-outsider and anti-immigrant sentiment, and the proposed ballot measurewould require builders to discriminate against those who are not current SanFrancisco residents when making "affordable" housing available.Therefore be it resolved that: The LibertarianParty of San Francisco rejects the xenophobic bias implicit in this misguidedproposal, and affirms its support for treating everyone equally under the lawregardless of where they live or how long they have lived there. Whereas: it is inherently unfair toany business that has already invested significant amounts of time andmoney going through the convoluted approval process to changethe rules midstream by adding yet more hurdles.Therefore be it resolved that: TheLibertarian Party of San Francisco urges city officials and voters tooppose a moratorium on market rate housing and to allow developerswho have played by the rules to complete their projects and increase thesupply of housing in The City.
Thanks!Aubrey