Remove road blocks on new builds first

In response to the editorial, “Time To Pony Up For Local Housing.”

I’m all for housing first methods, and I believe they may be the only way to address the current crisis. However, let’s make a deal. Remove the red tape delaying new builds in the city and county, cut property taxes, and then we can speak about building low income housing.

You are killing increases in supply with regulations, which drives up demand, and increases rent. You are stifling supply, while demand continues to increase. It’s no surprise that rents continue to increase, while you refuse more housing to be built to satisfy the demand.

You continue increasing property taxes which increases rents. Landlords don’t pay property taxes. An increased property tax means that we will receive rent increases. You are making renters pay for these tiny houses. Those same renters that may end up needing one after you increase property taxes yet again.

Then, after the government produces these easily expected results and people go homeless, you say the government is the solution. That’s obviously not right considering the millions of dollars that have been spent with little or no results. The giving people and business leaders of the county could come up with a much more affordable option to address this problem.

Remove the entity that caused the problem, then we can start to fix the problems it produced. The private market is the only solution that will work, not another government program that will cause more problems than it fixes.

This story was originally published May 12, 2017 at 6:56 PM with the headline "Remove road blocks on new builds first."