Not in My Back Yard

Are you a NIMBY opposed to affordable housing? You are, according to the report, if you're worried about your health, safety, or the environment. "The personal basis of NIMBY involves fear of change in either the physical environment or composition of a community. It can variously reflect concern about property values, service levels, fiscal impacts, community ambience, the environment, or public health and safety"

NIMBY-ism extends to any controls on development, according to the report. "[California residents] are naturally concerned about road congestion, overburdened sewer and water systems, unhealthy air quality, and overcrowded school systems...under these circumstances, the tendency to resort to the quick fix of placing restrictive regulations on development is not uncommon." The report offers no alternative to the "quick fix" of community planning -- except, of course, removing all restrictions on construction.

Apartment building owners would have substantially lower taxes, even if they made a hefty profit. The Kemp report recommends treating "lower income multifamily housing as residential rather than commercial property." Curiously, no suggestion is offered to link lower taxes for the owner to lower rent for the tenants.

Developers have long sought rubber-stamp project approval, without lengthy debate by elected officials. The report goes one giant step farther: "...State as well as local development reviews...should establish a legal presumption of approval...if the government did not act within the time established by law, approval would be automatic."

In the view of the Kemp Commission, you have the right to build almost anything you want -- even if it overloads public services such as sewer and water. The government should "require localities to include a range of residential use categories that permit, as of right, duplex, two-family, and triplex housing..." (emphasis added)

Another recommendation of the report is to "require all local governments to review and modify their housing and building codes and zoning ordinances to permit...single-room occupancy housing." (emphasis added)

How should cities pay for the services for all these added people? Definitely not by charging fees to the developer. According to the Kemp report, "...impact fees should be used to fund only facilities that directly serve or are directly connected to the house or development on which these fees or levied." In other words: not a penny to support community infrastructure.

The report dedicates an entire chapter to the evils of environmental protection, claiming that "Housing affordability is becoming an inadvertent casualty of environmental protection." Wetland regulations need to be relaxed and the government should "modify the [Endangered Species Act] so as to ensure that affordable housing and other important societal needs are given full weight..." The single example cited in the report is exteme: the endangered Stephens Kangaroo Rat in Riverside County, which protects what the report calls, "a system of rat preserves." No mention is given of the remarkable success rate of the Act, which has stabilized or improved chances of survival for 40 percent of the species, including the American Bald Eagle and California Condor.