West Hollywood Progressives: ‘We Need Affordable Housing…but Not Where We Can See It!’

It’s funny how “progressives” (by that, I mean “progress on the road to socialism”) are all about affordable housing for people on limited incomes. “Housing is a human right!” They cry, and “We need homes for working people!”

Until, of course, someone proposes building those affordable, multi-family, multi-level housing units where the progressives in question can see them. In this video, The Free Press gives us an example of such, when West Hollywood progressives demonstrate NIMBY-ism (Not In My Backyard) run amok. The question involves the proposed building of a 7-story, 89-unit apartment building in West Hollywood to provide some of that affordable housing that progressives maintain is a “right” — until it happens where they can see it.

There are a few things in this video that merit discussion.

First: Of course, this city council meeting starts with the usual “stolen land acknowledgment” horse squeeze. This is virtue-signaling of the first water; unless these people are going to try to find some of the remaining Gabrieleno Tongva and Gabrieleno Kizh people and turn the land back over to them, then this is nothing more than a meaningless gaseous emission on the part of the council. No doubt, part of this gaseous outpouring consists of greenhouse gases — won’t these people ever think about the planet? Look, as I write this, I’m sitting on a piece of land in Alaska that other people sat on before me. I bought this land and the buildings on it by mutual agreement with the previous owners, who bought it by mutual agreement from other previous owners, who bought it from people who homesteaded the land under the Homestead Act. I own it, I pay taxes on it, it’s mine, and anyone who wants me to acknowledge anything can get stuffed.

Second: Oh, they are all for affordable housing, but watch what starts about 40 seconds into the video. They are complaining that 89 units in seven stories are not “residential.” They complain about the intrusion on the West Hollywood skyline. They complain about the number of units. Well, sorry, folks, it is residential. I can tell you from personal observation that Tokyo, one of the most expensive major cities in the world, provides affordable housing by vertical filing and small, efficient units; you wouldn’t believe the small spaces young Japanese people seem to live in very comfortably. But at about 2:50 in the video, you get the inevitable California progressive whining that the “quality of life” of the residents will be substandard. Well, it seems to me that the proposed residents, not some blue-haired busybody (why do they always have bizarrely colored hair?), should make that determination. Oh, and a little after three minutes in, one of the residents complains that the proposed building will affect ambient light hitting the stained-glass window in a church. How cheaply they hold their values!

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Third: Sanity, or as close as you’ll get to it in California, prevails in the end, as an attorney for the developers pops in at about 3:15 to point out that under state law, the West Hollywood residents are screwed; they don’t have any discretion. The state has legally limited the ability of local governments to block these developments. While I’m a big fan of self-determination and government being as close as possible to the citizens, I can’t help but feel some schadenfreude when urban progressives who yap about the need for affordable housing and demanding government action get exactly what they voted for. Do you want more government? Because this is how you get more government.

While it’s fun to see a bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites getting what they have coming — I especially love the casual smackdown administered at the end by a council member to one of the objecting residents, who actually lives in a housing development built under a similar program — none of this would happen in a sane society, where people’s rights to liberty and property were recognized. In a free society, one not governed by a bunch of Gladys Kravitzes with blue hair, the real estate market would fill the needs for low-income housing, and in some areas where it was financially feasible, these cities could deal with low-income housing as Tokyo does — with tall buildings full of small apartments. Let the people involved decide for themselves what kind of quality of life they want.

Instead, in West Hollywood, we will now see a high-density building, one that will actually provide affordable housing, put up by state mandate. And, West Hollywood progressives will complain about it to the bitter end. That’s fine. They tried for a heckler’s veto and lost. Now, they are getting the government they wanted, good and hard.