Paul Mirengoff
PowerLine
12/26/2013
As the end of the year approaches, we are waiting for the Obama administration to complete the process by which its rule on “affirmatively furthering fair housing” (AFFH) becomes embedded in the Code of Federal Regulations. In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued its proposed AFFH rule for public comment. The rule was expected to be finalized this month.
The AFFH rule is part of Obama’s attempt to dictate how we shall live…
…In essence, President Obama seeks to fulfill the left’s longtime dream of redistributing money from the suburbs to the cities and inner-ring suburbs, and imposing racial and income balance in every neighborhood…
…Grantees—the states, localities, and public housing authorities—are required to improve choice, through “planning, strategies, and actions.” And HUD promises to help by providing data on “patterns of integration and segregation; racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty; [and] access to education, employment, . . . transportation, and environmental health, among other critical assets.”…
Read the entire article at PowerLine.
Related: HUD Targets Suburban Zoning As Racist, Official Warns
…HUD has cut off $17 million in funding to Westchester for refusing to sue local municipalities to modify zoning ordinances to accommodate more subsidized housing. HUD claims the ordinances, which like almost every locality in America, set limits on building density, are racially “exclusionary.”
“HUD has said that even quarter-acre (lot) single-family zoning, in their view, may very well be discriminatory and perpetuate ‘segregation,'” Astorino said. “And (it) must be looked at, and even maybe attacked.”
Over the past few years, Westchester, one of the toniest communities in America, has built 400 affordable-housing units in mostly white neighborhoods. It’s under federal orders to build 350 more at a total cost of $51 million.
But HUD’s not satisfied. “This is about changing every block, every neighborhood to the viewpoint of federal bureaucrats at HUD,” Astorino said…
…”The rest of the country needs to understand how this will affect them if these rules go through,” Astorino said.
Some are heeding his warnings. Officials in Rindge, N.H., for example, are reconsidering accepting HUD grant money out of fear the agency will demand changes in the town’s zoning laws…
