HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan
13th April 2009
Steve Sailer is always worth reading.
Personally, I can’t make head nor tail of the newspaper’s account of his doings. But, from what I’ve learned about the bankers, developers, and “advocates” in the housing racket, when they all agree on something or somebody’s wonderfulness, you’d better get a good grip on your wallet.
Help me out here to see if I understand the process correctly: Developer X announces plans to build an apartment building of the legally maximum height for the neighborhood. Neighbors complain, saying it will block their sunlight, increase congestion, make parking harder to find, etc. and demand that the building be only a fraction of X height.
Shaun Donovan grants the developers’ wish for X height, as long as the developer makes some of the units “affordable” — i.e., charges below-market rates. In other words, because housing development is highly regulated, much of the profit from the development stems from getting permission from the government to build a tall building on a particular piece of land. Because the government can bestow or withhold that permission as it sees fit, it can extract some of the profit from the developers. (Sorry, neighbors, about your new sunshine shortage, but you should have invested more in the right politicians. Maybe next time you’ll be wiser.)
The obvious question, but one that seldom seems to occur to reporters explaining the wonders of the affordable housing racket, is: Who gets these “affordable” units? The right to buy or rent at below market values is hugely valuable so there will be no shortage of applicants. Some allocation method is necessary to choose from all the applicants. If the government doesn’t determine who gets in, the developers will just take under-the-table kickbacks to bring the net price up close to the market level. Am I being overly cynical in assuming that politics plays some role in determining who winds up in the “affordable” units?
Let me make a wild guess that some of those 1,833 were in some way affiliated with “affordable housing advocates.” A common phenomenon that has emerged in recent decades in America, but remains so off-the-radar that I’ve never heard a name for it, is the business of setting up leftwing pressure groups that make their living by reaching mutually profitable agreements with regulated businesses so that the business can do what it wants.