Conte: On Housing, Local Vs. State Control Is The Wrong Question

By Anthony Conte, NH Journal

A battle over affordable housing has become a debate over the wrong question. Unless lawmakers understand what the argument is really about, we may lose an opportunity to get ahead of a problem with bipartisan cooperation. Liberty, not locality, is the question.

New Hampshire housing prices have risen substantially over the last decade, a bigger increase than in most states, in part because of the New Hampshire Advantage, which makes our state so attractive to those fleeing high taxes in neighboring states.

Efforts have been made in the state legislature to ease upward pressure on housing prices. Legislation limiting the mandates and prohibitions local governments can impose on property owners and homebuilders has been passed. Over decades, many municipalities increased minimum lot sizes, expanded parking space mandates, limited “mother-in-law” units, required onerous reviews, and took other steps that raised the cost of building, buying, and owning a home.

Those who oppose these bills call them an attack on “local control.” But the heart of the matter isn’t local control at all.

“Local control” is a rhetorical distraction. Dressing up “control” with the friendly modifier “local” shouldn’t make us forget we are being controlled in the first place, or make us feel better about it.

Choosing local control or state control does not by itself point us to pro-freedom policies that encourage affordable housing.

The Revolutionary War-era farmer portrayed by Mel Gibson in the 2000 movie “The Patriot” referred to a classic observation about local officials when he said of King George, “Why should I trade one tyrant 3,000 miles away for 3,000 tyrants one mile away?”

The tyrannical monarch waged brutal war while our elected local officials operate mostly via peaceful public processes. But that doesn’t mean local control means immunity from abuse and overreach.

New Hampshire has a multitude of elected officials in separate units of government that spend tax dollars while regulating and restricting what we do with our property, our paychecks, our professions, our pastimes and even our parking, issuing thousands of pages of legally binding text. That’s a lot of control, even if it is local.

The heart of the matter is freedom, not proximity to those who govern us. What may we do with our own property? New Hampshire is a “Dillon’s Rule” state, not a home-rule state, meaning municipalities only possess powers expressly granted by the state legislature.

The state has every legal authority to override local governments to protect the people and their rights. This is different from the relationship between the federal government and the states. Local governments were created by the states, while states are sovereign entities that created the federal government.

Our local units of government are mere auxiliaries of the state government in the important business of municipal rule.

The state’s supremacy over local governments is well recognized. It is why your local city or town cannot restrict your rights to gun ownership, speech and religion. Your town cannot discriminate against you because of race, sex, disability or sexual orientation. Your township cannot tax your income or your purchases. Your county cannot take away your right to farm.

The New Hampshire Municipal Association resists affordable housing bills. It would have us frame questions in terms of local control vs. state control. It prefers that local governments, not the state, decide whether you may exercise certain property rights.

Civic-minded local officials see themselves as part of the American tradition of self-government. They’re not wrong when they say zoning can contribute to property values. But they should remember the trade-off. To the extent zoning protects your property value, it comes at the cost of having neighbors exert collective control over your property.

Instead of framing the issues in terms of local rule, we should ask whether a bill constrains government power, protects individual and property rights, promotes economic freedom, and creates consistent and predictable rules. My reading of recently passed state legislation to make housing more affordable is that the legislation made positive progress for which the Legislature should be congratulated, but that more can be done to encourage building affordable housing.

Housing costs are a major driver of personal financial stability, especially for young people, employment markets, population migration, and overall state strength. We can make affordable housing a decisive competitive advantage for New Hampshire by remembering that liberty trumps locality.

Tony Conte is a recent escapee from Taxachusetts, enjoying life in Salem, N.H. He wrote this for NHJournal.com.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.