Unintended Consequences Target You

From the Pioneer Press, Oak Leaves "Talk Targets Affordable Housing":

Her infant son in her arms, Mary Shiffer embodied Friday's affordable housing discussion by the Business and Civic Council of Oak Park.

When she moved to Oak Park in 2000, Shiffer said, her tax bill was $5,000. Six years later, it was up to $15,000.

In 10 years in Massachusetts, her property tax bill went up no more than $400 total, Shiffer said. She lived in a suburb of Boston similar to Oak Park.

"I wasn't hit with these sizable increases," she said. "I'm just stunned at the rate of increases we see every year."

Shiffer told council members her child may never get a chance to take advantage of the quality education at Oak Park-River Forest High School.

"I'm trying very hard to stay here," she said following Friday's council meeting. "I really don't want to move."

The civic council's panel discussion featured Greenplan Management president Bill Planek, Realtor Nancy Leavy, real estate executive Tom Gallagher, University of Illinois in Chicago census expert Max Dieber and diversity consultant Sherlynn Reid.

Panelists discussed the housing environment in Oak Park and also provided a few suggestions to address affordable housing issues.

Gallagher suggested that, if people wanted one, the village could set up an affordable housing program to support ownership or tenancy. Last year, he said, the village issued 5,000 permits for work on residential properties.

"If each of those was $10 more, each one of them would have paid," Gallagher said.

The money raised could be put into a trust fund and subsidies provided to people such as teachers or other civic employees.

"I don't think governments should ever get into the ownership business or be in the developer business," Gallagher said. Financial assistance programs, he said, are roles government can take on.

Ok, let's get this straight. This woman's property taxes have tripled in the last 6 years and the answer from the "Business and Civic Council" (the political cover committee for local officials) is to raise fees even more on property owners who are repairing or remodeling their homes. Then take her money and that of other homeowners and give it to "civic employees" to subsidize their housing. Unless Ms. Shiffer is in this preferred group she is out of luck.

And homeowners across the country who live in areas of towns desirable to developers, and who can't afford the taxes or fees to keep up their homes, are in danger of being declared blighted and taken over by eminent domain. Many local governments, swollen with administrative employees, are driving eminent domain to raise revenues, but often end up pricing people out of their communities to benefit their own employees.

Institute for Justice:

Even Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the majority opinion in Kelo, made clear that states were free to impose greater limits on condemnation. Justice Stevens said mere months after the decision that he believes eminent domain for economic development is bad policy and hopes that the country would find a political solution. He said, “I would have opposed it if I were a legislator . . . . My own view is that the free play of market forces is more likely to produce acceptable results in the long run than the best-intentioned plans of public officials.”