New Orleans   Recently I listened to an interview with a prominent local developer on WAMF in New Orleans as he was asked about gentrification.  He tried to walk the line between his self-interest and progressive values.  He was against displacement on one hand, but he opposed inclusionary zoning that would require developers to create affordable units in their properties.  He claimed it would sacrifice three units for every one that it created without mentioning that most of the three units built would be for high-end customers.  He opposed a tax on developments that would fund affordable housing or homeless programs.  He claimed the city and state had no money, so the real solution to gentrification had to be federal.

In some ways his argument was breathtaking in its chutzpah.  He was claiming to believe that gentrification was in some ways a pejorative term for a natural process, while opposing displacement, protecting his self-interest, and at the same time presenting himself as an advocate of a national remedy.  Unsaid was the fact that given our Developer-in-Chief president and the current situation in Congress and HUD, the chance of a federal remedy is much less than that odds Vegas would give a snowball in hell.

Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies, in a commentary in YesMagazine made a much stronger, more realistic case for local action, saying:

Municipalities should move with due haste to enact high-end real estate transfer taxes, requirements for the disclosure of beneficial ownership, and regulations aimed at the disruptive impact absentee-owner-investors are having on our cities.

Collins doesn’t claim this will stop gentrification but makes the case that it will discourage “rapacious global capital” from exacerbating displacement and artificially increasing ownership and rental prices by discouraging the kind of offshore wealth capital “parking” that has been so destructive in Vancouver and London.  As an example, he cites the situation in San Francisco, another favor of “ultra-high net worth individuals” with over $30 million in assets, where voters passed a high-end real estate transfer tax on residential and commercial properties with $5 million price tags and higher.  According to Collins, the tax…

“…the tax expected to generate $44 million a year, which has been allocated to fund free tuition for residents at San Francisco Community College and help pay for the city’s tree maintenance program.”

That’s not the same as building affordable housing, but it’s moving in the right direction.  Furthermore, there’s no reason it could not leverage other funds to construct affordable housing or provide city-based rent subsidies.

We can’t wait for Washington.  We have to act now, and whether a real estate tax on $5 million or $1 million or whatever, if such a tax builds local equity by creating affordable housing or other programs that fight displacement, it’s worth a fight.