| Virginia New Source,
Virginia Beach, Virginia RENEWING VIRGINIA’S CITIES |
| A lead Pilot editorial proclaims the death of Virginia’s urban
cities if the Virginia General Assembly no longer allows local housing
authorities to also condemn perfectly good homes and businesses in
dilapidated neighborhoods because the city has dismally failed to
perform its duties in enforcing a proper building code.
This heavy-handed remedy turns the very concept of condemnation
on its head along with the freedom of Virginians to own land for as long
as one wishes to.
Since its
invention by the United States Supreme Court fifty years ago this
un-American practice has more often than not produced disappointing, if
not perverse, results for the community.
Under this mistaken policy the people in deteriorating areas who did maintain their properties as required by law are forced to pay a disproportionate cost for the failure of their neighbors to do the same. These longtime residents are to be replaced as owners through condemnation, whether they like it or not, by city council’s favorite developers. Even worse, condemnation for large-scale redevelopment has become the prime vehicle for cities to simply force their poor residents to leave, hopefully to somewhere beyond the city’s borders. That is especially true from our six Hampton Roads city hall fiefdoms endlessly competing in this zero-sum gold rush. The poor are on their own with condemnation, unlike the developers.
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There is not a city in Virginia
that was not built from the ground up solely by private initiative and
cooperation.
That is
something called liberty.
The cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Hampton and Newport News have been
redeveloped many times over through their long history without the
government planning and spending that the Pilot finds so essential to
economic growth. If a city wishes to end blight the way to succeed would be, first, to be a city known for enforcing its building code. Relaxing zoning restrictions and lowering city spending would be a huge spur to redevelopment. Establishing a competitive education system would induce an economic miracle, including vibrant redevelopment. And, yes, a city could appropriately address in a fair and reasonable way the practical problems of piecing together a parcel of land for large-scale, private redevelopment without condemning homes and commercial buildings that are up to or surpass building code requirements. There are many focused remedies available for all imaginable redevelopment problems that fall far short of the dictatorial use of condemnation. A few examples: Make profiteering by holdout an offense, civil or even criminal. Simplify sorting out defective real estate titles. Downsize and streamline the zoning and building permit approval process. Dramatically increase inspections and code enforcement, the proper role of government in this instance. |
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If the cities of Virginia were to pursue policies like these grounded in the free market the amount of private capital for continuous redevelopment would dwarf any amount of public monies the Pilot could ever hope to possibly spend on the forced removal of the poor and the middle class at the whim of the rich and the powerful. The hallmark of government-directed redevelopment policy over recent decades has been the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich occurring in Virginia. One needs look no further than the recent Ocean View case to see whom the true winners and losers usually are in government redevelopment.
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