This is logic that is difficult to believe. This is happening in Los Angeles, Cal., not China, or Vietnam, or some other communist country. This is in the People’s Republic of California:
The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved new rules to address major byproducts of the gentrification that has swept the city: limiting the size of “mansionization” additions and making it harder for developers to convert low-income housing into luxury lofts.
The rules radically limit the size of remodeled homes in the city’s flatlands to about 3,000 to 4,000 square feet in most cases, curtailing what homeowners say is a plague of giant, ugly stucco boxes that are killing neighborhood character.
This is their answer to the affordable housing crisis in L.A. To limit the freedom a property owner has in regard to upgrading his property from a fleabag hotel to a desirable property.
So, here is how it breaks down. You buy a property that is not that expensive, and rather than having the freedom to improve that property to make it worth more, thus making a (gasp) nice profit, you are limited because you might make it more difficult for a poor person to afford to live there.
“When certain neighborhoods have homes on steroids and others no longer have a place for the poor to sleep, the social fabric is torn,” said City Council President Eric Garcetti.
Welcome to the collective, Golden Staters. You are not free to do as you wish with your property, but are restricted by the constraints of the “social fabric,” whatever that is.
Mercedes Marquez, general manager of the city’s Housing Department, said the double action represented a move “to make sure that everybody has a say and stake” in the city.
Allow me to rephrase that quote: “the double action represented a move ‘to make sure that everybody has a say and stake’ in the city in your private property..”
Perez Becker said the ordinance “allows revitalization to continue,” in part because there are provisions allowing owners to convert their buildings if they follow certain rules.
You have freedom to do what you want as long as you do what you are told. That’s sounds pretty good, right?
Hat Tip: Reason Magazine
