The Democrats’ War on Small-Town Values and Property Values

        Across the U.S., Democrats are waging war to crush a lifestyle they abhor. Call it small-town America: single-family neighborhoods, quiet streets, town centers stamped with their own historic character, and almost no signs of the vagrancy and homeless encampments that plague cities.

        Democrats want you to have none of this. If you’ve worked for years to save up for a home in one of these havens, forget about it.

        The Democratic Party is using brute legal force to remake towns using a cookie-cutter formula that forces each to have the same proportion of houses and apartments, the same mix of low-, middle- and upper-income residents, and the same reliance on public transit, all controlled by state politicians.

        Any town that resists gets shamed as “segregated” — though this isn’t about race — and “snobby.”

        On Saturday, the Connecticut legislature passed a bill, H.B. 5002, which should be called the Destroy Connecticut Towns Act. It’s headed to Gov. Ned Lamont’s desk for signature. The new law dictates how many low-income and moderate-income apartments each Connecticut town must provide, and mandates that towns also foot the bill for the schools, parks, public transportation and other services low-income residents will need. Local taxes will soar.

        The bill explicitly says its purpose is to ensure “economic diversity” in each town. This is about social engineering, not remedying housing shortages.

        Democrat Bob Duff, the state senate majority leader, says “it’s extremely important … that we don’t segregate people based on a ZIP code.” Everyone, regardless of income, should have the opportunity to choose to live in any town.

        The bill mandates that the wealthiest towns, mostly in lower Fairfield County, provide most of the new housing, even though that raises the cost. Land costs less in other towns, and lower-income people this bill is supposed to serve are more likely to find bus transportation and affordable stores in these other towns as well.

        Connecticut lawmakers are nixing local rule. Ordinances that protect the appearance of a town have to be overruled. The bill states that multifamily buildings of up to 24 units will no longer have to provide off-street parking. Envision cars lining every residential street.

        Towns also will be forced to welcome vagrants who want to sleep in parks and public lots. The bill outlaws “hostile architecture,” meaning park benches with armrests and divided seating, or stone walls with spikes on top that deter sleeping in the rough.

        Instead, the bill launches a program of mobile showers and mobile laundry services on trucks to serve the homeless wherever they choose. Picture the mobile showers pulling up to Greenwich Common Park on the town’s main street, or Waveny Park in New Canaan.

        How can kids walk around town with their pals if there are homeless encampments? Judge Glock, director of research at the Manhattan Institute think tank, points out that the homeless amount to 1% of the population in Los Angeles but commit 25% of the homicides. Inviting the homeless means inviting crime and drugs.

        Californicating the small towns of Connecticut by encouraging public camping and vagrancy “is frightening,” says Glock.

        New York Democrats are also taking aim at small-town living. A bill sponsored by state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal would outlaw local towns setting minimum lot sizes over one-eighth of an acre near the town center and a half-acre everywhere else. Postage stamp sizes.

        Riverhead, New York, Town Supervisor Tim Hubbard is vowing to sue. “We’re trying to keep our community as rural as it can be. … We don’t think the state should be zoning our town.”

        Hoylman-Sigal chooses to live on the west side of Manhattan, but who is he to impose a population-dense lifestyle on small-town New Yorkers?

        Similarly, in New Jersey, Democratic Gov. Tim Murphy is pushing lawmakers to override local ordinances and impose the same kinds “reforms” as those in the Connecticut bill.

        In all these states and across the country, small-town Americans need to fight back. There is no constitutional right to live in a wealthy town with single-family homes and leafy, quiet streets.

        It’s something you earn.

        Once you’ve purchased a home, you have a right to protect its value.

        It’s time to put blue-state politicians on notice that their battle to destroy our suburbs and small towns will be resisted at the voting booth and in court.

        Betsy McCaughey is a former Lt. Governor of New York State and founder of SaveOurCity at savenyc.org. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.