San Diego Real Estate Neighborhood Income Diversity

San Diego real estate neighborhood diversity may soon be coming to your neighborhood! What I’m talking about here is income diversity. Yes, this is the latest ‘under the radar’ utopian social engineering being pushed by the Obama administration.

The administration is using the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to implement the new neighborhood income diversity program. The Obama administration is moving to implement income housing diversity in the upscale and wealthier neighborhoods across the country.

These new HUD regulations which were quietly implemented  last year, are applicable to all cities and communities that accept HUD funds for low-income affordable housing developments, currently, there are approximately 1250 communities nationwide (including San Diego County) that would be affected under these new regulations.

Under the new regulations, the 1250 communities are now required to examine patterns of neighborhood segregation and develop plans to address it. Those communities that don’t comply would lose the HUD funds that are now allocated to improve blighted neighborhoods and develop more affordable housing.

Here’s what a HUD spokesman said about the program: “HUD is working with communities across the country to fulfill the promise of equal opportunity for all. The proposed policy seeks to break down barriers to access to opportunity in communities supported by HUD funds.”

For those that may not be familiar with political speak, what HUD is saying to communities across the country that want to improve their blighted housing areas and develop more affordable housing , is that unless they comply and income diversify their middle-class and upbeat and upper-income communities, HUD will cut off their funding.  In other words, this is government blackmail.

The left’s rationale is that communities in the United States have a history of putting affordable housing in poor areas and that under the fair housing act of 1968, the HUD is obligated to take action. The Right argues that the Fair Housing act of 1968 applies to racial discrimination in housing and that the new interpretation that it encompasses income diversity is off base.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) said: “American citizens and communities should be free to choose where they would like to live and not be subject to federal neighborhood engineering at the behest of an overreaching federal government.”

Another critic of these new regulations said: “HUD bureaucrats will be in a position to decide on their own whether your particular town meets their ideal of racial and income distribution, and if you don’t meet their ideal of that mix, you’re not going to get any money.”

So, if you want to live in a safe neighborhood something commensurate with the effort that you put into your education, that’s still fine as long as  there is low-income housing development a couple blocks away.

San Diego Real Estate Neighborhood Income Diversity

In conversations with other real estate brokers in San Diego about this new rule, I found that there is a tremendous amount of misunderstanding on the implementation.  It seems people from mid to upper-income neighborhoods, such as La Jolla and Rancho Santa Fe believe that because of zoning restrictions and or lack of undeveloped land parcels, these new rules will not affect them. The fact is, these rules are actually aimed at just such neighborhoods.

It’s my understanding that local communities will be encouraged to disregard local zoning requirements in order to implement this new regulation. Plus, if you think there is no developable land within your neighborhood, the talk is that if the city/community owns property, let’s say for schools, a fire station or library, that can be consolidated or closed and then that property can be used for a low income housing development and local zoning restrictions can be ignored in favor of implementing the federal government policies.

I guess, the Left’s utopian dream is that a US citizens can always choose where to live as long as there’s a low-income housing development within each and every neighborhood. So, let’s stop trying to improve blighted neighborhoods and instead spread the blight to all neighborhoods … in the name of equality.

San Diego Real Estate Neighborhood Income Diversity

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