Rights and personal responsibilities

Two weeks ago, Cynthia Murray’s commentary published on our Tribune’s editorial page immediately captured my attention. Her opening paragraph spoke of the need for public discourse to depart from its extreme focus on rights and to emphasize more the importance of responsibilities. Because of the opening paragraph’s traditional and conservative tone I found myself nodding – yes, yes, as I read it.
My enthusiasm and concurrence was short lived as my continued reading disclosed that this commentary was apparently employing a “bait and switch” persuasion strategy. The commentary took a sudden and sharp left turn when the writer declared that “housing is a basic human right.” This reference to a housing right is in direct contrast to her initial urging that our discourse not focus on rights but on responsibilities. Her reference to responsibility suddenly switched from her use of “my” responsibility which is a “personal” responsibility to a collective, community responsibility. The adjective “personal” was not to be found as a modifier to responsibility anywhere in this commentary. In this context, such housing is more properly described as an entitlement.
If you examine our country’s founding documents – the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Constitution, nowhere in these documents will you find that housing is a basic human right. Our Declaration of Independence speaks of the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It clearly does not suggest or guarantee that there will be equal outcomes for all citizens in that pursuit.
The accumulation of the necessary capital to purchase a home is the result of each individual’s personal responsibility and efforts to work for that capital in their pursuit of happiness. The availability and price of their housing pursuit is determined by the free market’s supply and demand for housing. Unfortunately, because of Healdsburg’s GMO (Growth Management Ordinance) the annual supply of new housing is limited to a combined total of 30 units for all new housing developments. Based upon the 2010 U.S. census, the total number of housing units in our community is about 4,800, so that 30 units only allows a total annual growth rate of about 0.6 percent per year.
Economics 101 (which should be a mandatory course in high school) demonstrates that as the supply of a purchased item drops, the price rises and vice versa. In addition, there are significant fixed costs to a housing development of any size. Therefore, as the number of housing units in a particular development increases, the fixed cost per housing unit, and ultimately, the selling price decreases. If project limitations such as a GMO prevent developers from obtaining a competitive return on their investments, based upon the free market system, they will seek development opportunities elsewhere. Therefore, in my view, it is the GMO’s negative impact upon both the housing supply and the economies of scale which is the primary reason for high home prices in Healdsburg. Certainly, the GMO can and should be revisited and modified to lower this impact.
As Cynthia Murray correctly notes in her commentary, zoning is also a factor. Zoning can be reviewed and possibly modified to allow for smaller, lower cost homes and different types of housing where such zoning changes are compatible with established neighborhoods. Such revisions are particularly feasible for the south side of Healdsburg where NuForest Products will be leaving Healdsburg, and that land, as well as other undeveloped property in the south, could become available for residential development.
Her proposals that our Healdsburg community and “our elected officials explore how to make housing, for sale and for rent, more affordable, allow new types of housing, revisit zoning and permitting fees” are certainly worthwhile goals. However, as is often said of worthwhile goals, the devil is in the details.
In summary, if the intent of Murray’s commentary is to encourage our city to pursue the worthwhile goal of more affordable housing in the context of an entitlement (the claimed basic human right to housing) and governmental/taxpayer financed subsidies; I believe that such pursuits will lose the support of many in our Healdsburg community.
Mel Amato is a Healdsburg resident