ADDED GOVERNMENTAL REGS AND RESTRAINT KILL HOUSING MARKET
BY DAN VALENTI
PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY
(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, MONDAY JUNE 12, 2017) — You here a lot these days about “affordable housing,” especially in a Walmart city such as Pittsfield, where decent, taxpaying middle-classers are on the run and the “gimme gangs” have taken root. In the abstract, affordable housing for all sounds great. In reality, however, everything else in public life, “affordable housing” has become political.
In Pittsfield, for example, housing starts get clobbered by what a recent edition of USA Today Money calls “the regulatory morass faced by builders …” Massachusetts leads the league in making it nearly impossible for builders to construct affordable, profitable homes. That’s when government enters to “subsidize” the market. At that point, capitalism exits, the invitation to the freeloaders gets sent R.S.V.P., and taxpayers get hosed.
There are many factors keeping private enterprise from addressing this serious housing need in Pittsfield and elsewhere save for hot spots such as Boston, San Francisco, the Hamptons, Seattle, and locally, the Berkshires’ South County.
They include:
- An incomprehensible labyrinth “of zoning, environmental, safety, and other requirements” (USA Today)
- Shortages of suitable building lots
- Lack of trained workers
- Private equity hesitant to issue loans since the housing crash of the mid 2000s
- Confusing local safety and environmental regulations
- Increasing regulatory costs, up 30% since 2011 (National Association of Home Builders)
- Rising water and sewer hookup fees (an earlier column in THE PLANET detailed the egregious jump in such fees in Pittsfield)
- New “impact fees” slapped on developers by local governments starved for cash. “Impact fees” include a “you name it” buffet of often arbitrary costs developers must pay, for example, road paving or widening, environmental impact studies, and the like.
- Federal and state mandates that builders protect wetlands and endangered species, of which there 1,447. For example, where not long ago a contractor could excavate a simple retention pond to handle water runoff and address environmental concerns, today “he often must build a concrete vault” that costs 10 to 15 times as much.
- Longer waits for approval from local agencies. Ask the developer for Walmart, who wants to build a superstore off Woodlawn Avenue on the PEDA property. While Pittsfield daddles and doodles with a project that is a no-brainer, the company must pay the price for the delay. Time is money. The longer a property sits idle, the more money goes down the drain.
Faced with all these costs, developers will often either abandon projects move to pricier homes, buildings, condos, and apartments, shutting out the people who need good housing the most. As bad as the housing situation is in Pittsfield, it’s even worse for commercial properties. Investors, developers, and builders increasingly avoid the city rather than face the nightmarish gauntlet the city requires to do business. Exhibit A: The Gas Man convenience store and filling station on East and Lyman streets. After the city assured the developer that he had met all requirements, and after $500,000 sunk into the property, at the last second the Board of Health said “No. You can’t sell tobacco products,” about 35% of the store’s anticipated income. It took months and months to get that mess cleared. Meanwhile, the investor was forced to pay taxes and interest on whatever loans he had received.
What private equity firm will loan money for projects in Pittsfield? That’s when local governments force taxpayers, without their will or consent, to play venture capitalists, and that’s when the vultures swoop In (EV Worldwide, Workshop Live, Nuclea, ad infinitum, ad nauseum).
If you want to buy a house, break out the Monopoly board. There’s cheap property to be had on Baltic Avenue.
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“God is love.” — John, New Testament
“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”
LOVE TO ALL.
And let’s not forget the Community Preservation Tax to fund even more “affordable” housing.
That’s a post development cost.
Whatever you call it, it’s another way to tax us for pet projects
Doesn’t the City have a red carpet program now?
The Walmart proposal is a dumb idea for Pittsfields residential crime neighborhood and just a 10 min walk to Elm street.Build it in Stockbridge and we will come.
Just keep out of my neighborhood.
The Tyler Street area welcomes a Super Walmart. There isn’t any NIMBYism in the Tyler Street area concerning a Super Walmart. Bring it on!!!
PAT
You are correct. In fact, most of Pittsfield supports this development. My point in the column is that once “official” Pittsfield gets involved with developers, builders, contractors, and private equity, then wet blanket comes down on the spark of progress. Private equity and enterprise won’t come here. Consequently, to make Pittsfield appear “bustling,” those same officials use taxpayer funds for the dread “public-private” partnerships. You know how those turn out. The public pays the price. The private reaps the reward. Such a deal doesn’t attract true, legitimate, committed investors, only those looking for some portion of the free ride.
True. Pittsfield has had too many of the dreaded “public-private” partnerships which never benefit the public.
I hope you plan on pointing out to the public that Trisha Farley-Bovine’s son was Lenox Valedictorian.
School choice is amazing when used by the bleeding heart 1%
Good for Tyler Street, the renaissance is beginning, LED lights on on the way also, it will be a happening place unless the Councior keeps throwing a monkey wrench In it.
It amazing how Tyler Street businesses self organized, motivated and funded launched a revitalization of a corridor without government interference. While sometimes government funding is necessary to achieve a vision, its involvement in Tyler Street now has me a bit worried. But the best advice I can give to neighborhood businesses is this….Keep Downtown Pittsfield Inc. AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE.. before it becomes the anchor that sinks your momentum, as it has in downtown.
Yup,its a Walmart town
The increasing costs from the home builders association mysteriously don’t include profits from land entitlement, which in a housing desert is more likely to be the moneymaker than the actual house construction. Should also note that the figures come from self reporting surveys of their membership.
Good points, although I would that not all of the figures are tainted with self-reportage, as you know.
Speaking of politicians questionable tactics when will we see Donald Trumps finances and taxable earnings,we can conclude he has something to hide from American citizens