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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-07-1970 Regular MeetingFairhopr Planning and Zoning Commission Regular Meeting Mon., Dec. 7,1970 j 5P.M. City Hall - - Present: Chmn. Parker, members Macon, Box, Pitman, Kirk, Fred- erick, Arnold, Bung. Absent: member GAtes Visitors: Mr. Dyson, Mr. Earle Minutes of previous meeting approved as read. Mr. Earle, agent for Mrs. Irene Stewart, presented application for rezoning from R-2 to B-1 lots 17, 189 19 and 20, block 15, Volanta, to be accepted for advertising for public hearing. Following discussion, motion by Mr. Macon, seconded by Mr. Arnold that this application be accepted gor advertising for public hearing on Monday, Jan.4, 1971, gpject to completion of required list of property owners withY300 ft. radius. Motion carried unanimously. Mr. Arnold, reprsenting the Fairho' Single Tax Corporation, presented re- subdivision of lots T and 4, block 39 division 3, for approval.He explained tha t changes were necessary to correct errors of lonj standing involving exi4ting buildings. Motion by Mr. Macon, econded by Mr. Bung, that preliminary and final approval be given this subdivision. Motion carried. In accordAnce with by-laws adopted Oct. 79 1970, the chairman requested nominations for vice- chairman and secretary. Mr. Floyd Bung was nominated for vice chairman and Dr. Pierce Frederick for secretary , whereupon the chairman declared the nominations closed and Mr. Bung and Dr. Frederick elected. Re -printed of an� article from the WALL STREET JOURNAL con- cering suburban zoning laws were distributed to the members by the chairman. There being no further business, meeting adjburned. Eloise T. Wilson, Exec. sec j THE WALL STREET�JOURNAL, 'day, November 27, 1970 Ke-,r Jut Suburban Zoning Laws Called Discriminatory To Negroes and Poor Rules , Bar Big Apartments, Call for Individual Homes That Bring Heavy Taxes Firms, Unions Oppose Laws In Massachusetts, the state legislature last year passed a law that could require each mu- nicipality to zone at least 1.5% of its land for low-income housing. In New Jersey, the legis- lature passed a bill allowing outsiders to chal- lenge a town's zoning laws. Before that, only a resident could do so. The "Carrot" Approach So far the Federal Government has tread softly on the issue by using what officials refer to as the "carrot" approach. The Department of Housing and Urban Development favors communities with funds if they are willing to adopt flexible zoning and building codes. But it may soon get tougher. New York's Senator Jacob Javits has introduced a bill that would bar certain Federal subsidies for things like water and sewer facilities for suburbs that maintain "exclusionary" zoning practices. And By JOIIA V. CONTI HUD Secretary George Romney has proposed Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL a law that would forbid local governments If you're thinking of moving the wife and from using zoning and building codes to bar kids to a new apartment in some lovely New Federally financed housing for the poor. Nei - Jersey suburb —forget it. Unless you get rid of ther bill is given much chance of passage this the kids, you're not wanted. - year, but big fights over both are likely next "I don't know of any suburban municipality year. in New Jersey that permits three -bedroom The correct pattern of suburban zoning reg. apartments," says Esko J. Koskinen, president ulations came into widespread use in the late of the New Jersey Builders Association. The 1940s and early 1950s when droves of city dwell - most common zoning rule, he says, requires ers moved out of town in search of space and that 80% of the apartments in new projects fresh air. Once in the suburbs, they wrote into have one bedroom and 20% have two bed- law many of the single -family -dwelling and rooms, hardly an ideal amount of space for the minimum -sized -lot provisions that now govern typical family with two youngsters. suburban housing. And that's just the idea. It isn't that the That's the way they want things to remain. In Oyster Bay, on New York's Long Island, an New Jerseyites —or for that matter suburban- ' unofficial poll of residents recently showed sen- ites from Long Island to California —dislike timent running 20 to 1 against any loosening of children. They just don't like kids who go to zoning restrictions to allow for more low-cost school and whose parents duck some of the tax housing. costs by living in apartments, where the own- er's tax costs per resident are far, far lower than the costs of the owner of a private house. Suburbanites are willing to fight for what So; over the years most suburbs have en- they think is right. In suburban Ramapo, N.Y., acted zoning regulations that make it all but for instance, citizens recently went to court impossible for a family with more than one with no less than 10 suits to stop the local hous- child to live in anything but a heavily taxed, ing authority from building low-income hous- single-family home on a big plot. Suburbanites ing. Among other things, the suits charged the say this spreads the load evenly, keeps out town violated its own master zoning plan by shabby housing and generally keeps a nice sub- deciding to allow apartment construction. urb nice. At least part of the suburban objection to Fighting Mad low-cost or multiple -family housing is grounded But that isn't the way a growing number of in economics. Higher .densities mean more outsiders see it. 11Iary young families simply pressure on services such as water facilities and schools, and that, in turn, could can't afford that kind of housing. Blue-collar mean higher taxes. workers, many Negroes and countless others of "The local homeowner is faced with the bur - limited means find themselves shut out? To, den of financing the. school district, so natu- them the zoning restrictions form a grating rally there's a tendency to feel the community kind of discrimination, and they're fighting` mad about it. should have a slow pace of growth to keep the While the groups are by no means united, cost of the school down," says John A. Lom- their frustrations are beginning to shape a bardi, tovvn supervisor in suburban North Cas- broad attack on such suburban zoning. With tle, N.Y., in Westchester County. help from civil rights groups, builders, politi- Citizen grcups in Westchester County have clans and executives of some companies that estimated that in some area towns the tax have moved to the suburbs, they're pressing at structure requires one house with a $50,000 all levels of government for changes in zoning market value to support one child in school. laws. They're also going court. And if their Neither low-income nor luxury apartments early successes are any indication, the move- in have that kind of taxable base, they maintain. may well succeed in breaking the excl While such economic self-interest may be sinernen slue character of many the nation's suburbss,. good for a suburb, it's no good for a lot of other In Philadelphia's suburban Nether Provi- people, many city planners say. "Suburbs have dence Township, a builder recently sued and Please Turn to Page 13, Column 3 won w en a town s single-family zoning laws barred him from putting up a luxury apart- ment building. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled 4 to 3 in his favor, saying a com- munity cannot limit high -density housing if the only reason for doing so is to avoid the burden. -- on municipal services. no business requ one acre to be used for a single family the problem of urban sprawl and lan res," says one Eastern planner. A lot of powerful people, including officials of corporations with plants in suburban areas, tend to agree. As housing -costs have risen and as suburbs have become more stringent in their zoning requirements, many suburban con- cerns have found it increasingly difficult to find production workers nearby. Most blue-col- lar workers can't afford to live near the plant, they say. Ford Motor Co., which has a giant assembly plant in the northern New Jersey town of Mah- wah, attributes some of its 20;'o annual turn- over in production employes to a shortage of nearby housing for workers.:ilanv of its 5,000 employes travel to work from Newark, 30 miles away; New York City, 40 miles distant, and Jersey City, 45 miles away. "We don't know how much of this is caused by the hous- ing problem, but we know it contributes," a Ford spokesman says. One large industrial concern in the East with comparable problems has begun to exert pressure on town councils, Chambers of Com- merce and zoning boards to get more inexpen- sive housing suited for production workers. So far they've had little luck. Says one company official, "Town officials want the plant but they 2- don't want the hourly worker. They want the executive who will live on two acres of land in an $80,000 home." Such corporate pressure will probably in- crease, in large part because of suburban greed. Eager to get more taxable assets, the towns are encouraging business to settle there. In the fast growing 400-square-mile area around Princeton, N.J., 20 local governments have zoned enough undeveloped land for indus- trial parks and research centers to support 1.2 million jobs. At the same time, the undevel- oped residential land in the area is zoned for such low densities that it could house 'only 144,000 of the working population. Unions Join the Attack Unions are also joining the attack. United' Auto Workers Union District Nine in Northern New Jersey, which sponsors a. non-profit hous- ing corporation, has found itself rebuffed at every turn. "We try to do family housing (but'! the towns) say 'no, the property owner is up to his ears in taxes and doesn't want to pay any more,' " says a spokesman. The union is con- tinuing its efforts to get zoning changes. The union official, however, says there's more than just economics involved in the re- sistance. "The behind -the -scenes objection is racial," he says. "The towns oppose low-in- come projects because they'll bring in blacks." Indeed, one of the most concerted attacks Th zoning laws is being waged by civil rights groups. "We're not saying that these zoning regulations are directed at Negroes per se," says Nathaniel R. Jones, general counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "But the effect of the law is to exclude Negroes and those of moderate in- come, and if the effect is discriminatory, its the same as intent." A — It isn't solely the issue of discrimination that concerns civil rights I t is also a question of jobs. When com love away from a city to a suburb with g space for blue-collar workers the worker has the option of either traveling to the job from the city or else quitting. In too many instances, civil rights groups say, he's had to quit, and this in turn has contributed to unemployment in city . areas. The NAACP plans to press a case in Oyster Bay on Long Island. The area's 18 villages have a population of 362,000, of whom all butt 3,000 are white. Part of the reason for this, the � NAACP says, is that zoning laws exclude all but the wealthiest. Some of the villages have laws that limit areas to one house per 5 acres, the group says. The NAACP wants 20 of 1,500 vacant acres in the region to be rezoned from single- family on one -and -two -acre tracts to multiple - family housing. The thrust of its argument is that low-income groups are being denied equal protection of the laws in that zoning rules are being used to exclude them. Some Court Rulings So far the approach has proven fruitful. In Union City, Calif., the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing, which has been most successful in such challenges, won a significant victory recently when a Federal judge ruled that the Constitution required a municipality to provide enough housing for its poor. The case involved a group of Mexican Americans who are successful in getting a Aning change for multiple -family housing ap- proved by the town government only to be later thwarted when other citizens, under California law, submitted the move to a referendum. The judge ordered the town to make room for low- income residents. A key ruling has also been handed down in Montclair, N.J., where a judge ruled that a minimum construction -cost requirement was il- legal because it was unrelated to the health, safety or welfare of the community. In Lawton, Okla., the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a community that zones out low-cost housing must prove a specific nondiscriminatory rea- son for such zoning. But what may yet prove to be the most im- portant breakthrough on zoning took place re- cently in San Jose, Calif. In that town, a group representing Negroes and iilexican Americans attacked California's rule that allows public re- ferenda to decide whether publicly owned. Fed- erally funded housing for the poor can be built in a given community. A three -judge panel ruled the law is illegal, since Federally as- sisted projects such as highway construction, hospital and college dormitories have no such Impediments. The case has been appealed to the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on it this term. Civil rights groups think that if the high court approves the lower court ruling it will significantly ease the way to challenging zon- ing laws on grounds that they discriminate against the poor. "We're hopeful we will establish the princi- ple that suburban communities have to con- sider themselves.part of the total community, that they cannot screen =out people for eco- nomic or racial reasons," says the NAACP's Mr. Jones. "There will be no more islands in this country where people can get in and wall out people they consider undesirable." ,T