Morse: Grow Smart Is Not Telling The Truth

Morse: Grow Smart Is Not Telling The Truth

In a November 20 GoLocalProv editorial (Grow Smart RI Defends RhodeMap RI) Grow Smart presents an argument that the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) will not impact our local zoning laws.  In their op-ed, they allege: “The fact that it was produced with the assistance of Federal funds in no way enables Federal interests to insert themselves in decisions as to how the various strategies contained in the plan will be implemented.” 

Tell that to the citizens of Westchester County, NY.

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Grow Smart must be playing by a rule book that uses lack of transparency as a political advantage. Here are the facts.

HUD holds the position that neighborhood zoning by itself can create impediments to the type of housing that minorities generally use, being mostly low income rental housing, and is thus a violation of Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

HUD’s claim is that exclusive single family zoning at the neighborhood level is “defacto segregation” since the outcome creates neighborhoods financially out of reach of most minority populations.  This legal theory was documented in a 120 page report titled “Monitors Huntington Analysis of Westchester Municipal Zoning” as filed in the 2006 zoning lawsuit against Westchester County, NY.  The federal “Monitors” report was filed two months ago in the Westchester case.

HUD’s insertion into Westchester’s local zoning decisions

The claim in the Westchester lawsuit was that because Westchester took HUD funds, and failed to implement low-income housing in neighborhoods that traditionally did not have such housing, the County was in violation of federal mandates under 42 U.S.C. § 5304(b)(2). 

In 2009, the County reached a settlement agreement under which they agreed to remedy the lack of low income housing in all parts of the County down to the neighborhood 

level (i.e. census blocks) in accordance with racial quota objectives.  

The settlement required that implementation of low income housing begin in those census blocks having the least number of minorities regardless of the impact to existing property values, or the overall property tax base. The job of the Court appointed monitor was to ensure compliance to the settlement agreement.

Westchester and RhodeMap RI are linked by a common federal mandate

RhodeMap RI will make the same federal demands on RI’s local zoning as are being played out in the Westchester case. The hammer HUD will use under RhodeMap RI is the Social Equity Advisory Committee, who will be charged with the HUD mission to deconstruct neighborhoods down to the census block level. Impact on existing property values, and the property tax base, will not be relevant factors to the Social Equity Advisory Committee. What HUD will demand under RhodeMap RI is compliance to federal mandates, not RI state law. 

Financial housing discrimination remains unresolved

In 2013, the US Supreme Court was to decide the case of Mount Holly vs Mount Holly Citizens in Action being the first case to settle the legal theory of housing discrimination based on cost.  But just before oral arguments were to be heard, the parties settled, leaving HUD’s legal theory unresolved. It was felt by many legal scholars that support for HUD’s concept of financial housing segregation would be denied by the Supreme Court, and thus the parties settled before oral arguments were heard.   

RhodeMap RI needs more transparency, and more vetting.  Deconstruction of our neighborhoods is not an economic growth plan, it is a path to digging RI deeper into an economic abyss.  

Gary Morse is a retired communications consultant living in Barrington, and active in the debate on affordable housing policies.