By Evelyn Pyburn

It was quite disappointing to read the Governor’s Housing Task Force report and find not a single mention of property rights. It is after all the colossal violation of property rights that contributes most significantly to the imposition of costly regulations that make housing unaffordable.

The closest they came to giving even the slightest nod to property rights was a statement that said, “… homebuyers have the right to build and live on smaller pieces of land if they choose.” No dah! What an amazing discovery – in a free country, no less.

The task force was most accurate in identifying that the root of the problem of costly housing emanates mostly from local municipalities where “professionals” ply their trade of violating property rights and imposing utopian ideals and their costs upon citizens – which is usually rubber stamped by city administrators and councils in pursuit of special interests or lack the courage to stand up for the rights of property owners.

When you have bureaucrats telling citizens what kind of fence they have to have on their property and where to put it, or that they have to plant trees and what kind of trees, or how wide their garage door has to be and where it has to be, whether they can put an apartment in their basement, install a basketball hoop, have a three story building, conduct business in their building or how to build a deck – REALLY! at some point they are violating the right to determine how to use the property for which the property owner paid.

Those kinds of restrictions would never happen if government — at all levels —  respected the citizens they serve – if government recognized the Constitution and citizen rights.

I remember some years ago, William Perry Pendley, an attorney and property rights advocate, and former president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, saying  that almost all regulations are unconstitutional but they remain in force because no one has ever challenged them. That’s why the recent Chevron court decision was greeted with such applause by the business and private sectors – – it laid bare that fact.

If getting permitted in the process of building a house can add as much as 20 – 30 or 40 percent to the overall cost, which was cited as a problem by the task force, maybe the answer isn’t to try to get bureaucrats to respond quicker but to recognize that the person who OWNS the property shouldn’t have to ask permissions of someone who does not OWN the property. The bureaucrats certainly shouldn’t be dictating the minutia of what the property owner CHOOSES to do, right down to the details of fences, landscaping or paint colors!!!

Of course there are issues of safety and interconnecting with utilities,  traffic, etc. that have to be dealt with in collaboration with government officials, but they are not the things that make housing unaffordable. And even for issues of esthetics or other communal concerns there are processes that can be pursued that do not violate individual rights – but they most often do impose costs upon those who are trying to push the cost onto someone else. And, further, let’s bear in mind while all these regulations impose economic losses on many property owners there are others who position themselves and promote such regulations to enrich themselves in one way or another.

Anyone who understands how the free market works should truly be scratching their head as to why we even have a housing crisis. Any time there is a market demand for any kind of commodity or service, the market – ie. entrepreneurs and producers – usually responds so quickly that most consumers have been served long before politicians and bureaucrats can hold their first committee meeting. Anytime that does not happen there is usually only one reason – government. Even when it doesn’t appear to be government, if one digs deep enough they find it is government.

That local government is at the root of the problem is most unfortunate because those are the people least likely to want to address the problem.  There were occasional mentions, by the task force, that even though local governments had the authority to act, in some cases the State may have to take action. But, there were also objections from those worried about losing “local control.”

There is no need to lose local control, not if local leaders take up the challenge and address their local regulations with a total focus on removing unnecessary edicts and costs and letting the market (ie. homeowners) determine the product. That will undoubtedly require some different leadership – citizen leaders, not bureaucrats offering “model” solutions from on –high. We need a group of people who understand markets and respect property rights, as well as knowing what the barriers are – those who have been most often ignored in the past. 

But if that cannot be achieved and solving the problem must become the role of the State – then lets gett’er done.