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There should be a law (in a city, or state, etc) that says housing costs should be a fixed percentage of income -- and outline the measures needed to make that
by boplicity 5y ago
There should be a law (in a city, or state, etc) that says housing costs should be a fixed percentage of income -- and outline the measures needed to make that happen, in terms of actual policy requirements. As part of that, if the right policies fail to be enacted, courts should be empowered to enforce them.
In other words, legislatures should require themselves to fix the problem of high housing costs, and if they're not capable, the courts should be empowered to solve the issue by cutting through red tape, issuing fines, etc.
- handmodel 5y agoI sadly don't think that is practical. Housing costs would go down if it was legal to build 20 story apartment buildings in areas currently zoned for single family homes. As a political YIMBY I would love to see this happen - but don't see how a court could be given discretion on its own to decide which zoning measures should be eliminated and which have legitimate reasons to exist.
- boplicity 5y agoCourts don't have to make these types of decisions, however they can issue increasingly steep fines against governments until the problem is solved. This happened, for example, in Washington State with funding for schools not being adequate, and in violation of the law. The courts issued massive fines, and increased them, until the legal funding requirements were met.