LPF Calls for More Affordable Housing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 01, 2018

Contact: Todd Dennison,

Chairman, Libertarian Party of Sarasota County
Todddennison@yahoo.com

Bradenton, Fla. — The Libertarian Party of Florida calls for all communities to eliminate regulatory barriers to make housing more affordable.

“Libertarians should be dominating this issue,” said Todd Dennison, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Sarasota County. “We are compassionate individuals who value true economic freedom and seek true property rights to be restored, it just so happens that freedom and property rights are a solution to skyrocketing housing costs.” Dennison runs Dogecoin Not Bombs, an outreach program supported by crypto-currency donations.

Dennison said the 2016 Housing Development Toolkit correctly illustrates the barriers to affordable housing. Among the key findings were increases in rezonings from residential to commercial property uses and increases in regulatory constraints on property use. The report suggested many of the constraints, while well-intentioned to some, throttles availability of housing affordable to more residents.

“Local policies acting as barriers to housing supply include land use restrictions that make developable land much more costly than it is inherently, zoning restrictions, off-street parking requirements, arbitrary or antiquated preservation regulations, residential conversion restrictions, and unnecessarily slow permitting processes. The accumulation of these barriers has reduced the ability of many housing markets to respond to growing demand.” [1]

The same report found that just in the past 10 years, the share of very low-income renters paying more than half their income for rent increased to 7.7 million households nationwide. Since 1960, the percent of renters paying more than 30 percent of their income for housing more than doubled. [2]

The report offers several solutions familiar to Libertarians and a few we oppose. It suggests streamlining the construction approval process would get more housing on the market quicker, reducing cost of ownership. However, one recommendation is to force owners of vacant land to pay higher taxes. Libertarians strongly oppose any regulatory coercion.

 

[1] Housing Development Toolkit – (Sept. 26, 2016) – p. 2

[2] Housing Development Toolkit – (Sept. 26, 2016) – p. 7

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