Part of the county's new General Plan is dedicated to requiring rural land subdivisions of 20-, 40-, 80- and 160-acre parcel sizes so as to exclude more than 90 percent of potential homeowners from ever living in the uncongested, underdeveloped more spacious areas of San Diego County.

New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled against large lot zoning (and other impediments) in 1975 that discriminate against people who are different or less affluent, in what's known as the Mt. Laurel case. Later courts held in exclusionary zoning cases that the interests of those desiring to move into a community "outweigh the interests of those lucky enough to have gotten there first."*

All zoning, of course, is exclusionary -- that's its purpose! In effect, it decreases the supply of land for every category of use and inexorably raises the cost of all economic developments. Zoning restrictions constitute the heart and soul of the county's new General Plan.** A major objective is to exclude ordinary people from living in rural areas by zoning 20- to 160-acre increments with government planners usurping the choices we once made for ourselves. Taking over choices seems to be a continuing trend today at every level of government -- until an election when someone shouts: By what right?

Through a command and control philosophy, government planners feel they are more qualified to decide where people live than homebuyers through voluntary free market agreements with sellers. The General Plan enables planners to deliberately "congestify" core areas of the county and re-distribute wealth from rural property owners to others. Planners, with no believable evidence, contend it's more efficient and maintains the "character" of the communities as they define character.

You have to understand how planners think. Los Angeles, with the highest population density per square mile, is rated No. 1 in traffic congestion. Nevertheless, as reported in Urban Roadway Congestion Annual Report, Portland Ore.'s smart-growth planners have been quoted, "with respect to density and road per capita mileage it (Los Angeles) displays an investment pattern we desire to replicate."***

The county board of supervisors will vote on implementing the new General Plan Oct. 20. This is an all-out effort to shift future development from the under-developed county into San Diego's 18 cities. Partly in hopes this policy will jam the freeways and make public transit a more attractive alternative even though the side effects are higher housing costs, less affordability and twice-as-long commutes on buses. Henceforth it will justify higher taxes to subsidize low-income housing. Got it? Create a problem and then raise taxes to mitigate the problem you created.

Will county supervisors rescind your property rights and destroy your wealth?

Capitalizing on this planning tool, the planning department states: "this (new General Plan) update reduces housing capacity by 15 percent and shifts 20 percent of future growth from eastern backcountry areas to western communities"**** The result: a loss of 42,000 homes over 20 years and a shift of 56,000 homes into the western county and the region's 18 cities. An overt "beggar thy neighbour" approach to coercive land use planning. You'd think it self-evident that whenever government downzones the developable supply of land, the result is higher land prices where development can occur and concomitantly, a higher cost of housing. San Diego has experienced chronic "planned" shortages of housing for over 30 years. It seems silly to have to state the obvious: The solution to a shortage of housing is more housing. State law even requires an affordable housing element in general plans. The most cost-effective affordable housing, however, comes not from government but from the free market.

A University of Michigan survey, "New Homes and Poor People, a study of a chain of moves," affirmed that the construction of 1,000 new dwelling units, both homes and apartments, makes it possible for 3,545 households to move to better accommodations. Of the 3,545 moves surveyed, 1,290 were by low- and moderate-income families. This is the essence of upward mobility. For example, the person buying a $600,000 "new" home vacates a $400,000 existing home, the buyer of which may vacate a $100,000 apartment, making it available for a low-income family. This is called "filtering," and then upward mobility as incomes increase with age, responsibility and work experience.

Anyone who didn't move to a brand-new house or apartment when they left their parents' home or graduated from college knows how the housing market works. Used (existing) housing is "affordable housing." Not all used housing is affordable of course, but the private market supplies far more housing for low-income people than all the government-funded programs put together, costing taxpayers up to four times more per unit built.

Using the University of Michigan methodology, the new General Plan will foreclose the opportunity for 148,890 households to move into better housing (42,000 x 3.545), making the poor poorer. This is unconscionable on the part of the board of supervisors.

Instead of trying to redistribute wealth by downzoning rural lands, the planning department should junk the new General Plan, keep the existing rural zoning, increase urban densities where suitable, and stick to issues of public health and safety while coordinating private development with public infrastructure. Make sure the infrastructure -- things such as water and sewage treatment facilities, etc., which make private development feasible -- is paid for by the beneficiaries of the infrastructure. Keep the existing rural zoning and free the free market, which has made American housing the envy of the world.

* Bernard    Siegan, Other People's Property, page 97
** GP Update, page 242 (9-4), Zoning Ordinance -- The County's Zoning Ordinance is one of the primary means of implementing the General Plan. Adoption of the updated General Plan necessitates a thorough review of Zoning Ordinance regulations pertaining to land use, density/intensity, design and development, resource conservation, and public safety.
GP Update Housing Choice, page 189: Zoning requirements for density, lot size, building type and parking requirements have made it difficult for developers to provide a variety of housing choices for different age or economic groups. Those same restrictions also limit the use of density bonus programs.
*** Vanishing Automobile, page 394
**** GP Update, page 1-2, Accomodate 238,500 = 85% of 280,588 (-15%) = loss of 42,0
 

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               Schnaubelt, president of Citizens for Private Property Rights, has been a commercial real estate broker
                                              for 39 years and was a San Diego City Councilman from 1977-81.

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