(I can't create live links in the comments, so I'm adding it here.)
Alex had asked: "Is it better to saddle the well-to-do with additional regulation, since they can pay for it most easily? Or is it better to force those of modest income to pay a premium cost for green building, in the name of saving them more on energy costs in the long run? Instead of asking real questions about the mechanics of "green building" regulation, this post is a rant on, supposedly, property rights."
My gripe is that the county has already created numerous restrictions on the type of development a property owner in unincorporated county land can pursue. This is a key distinction between the Eagle Place development issue you raised, as that land is within a community's boundary and as such there should be a different level of expectation for the property's use. The details would still be different for each proposal, however I see them as fundamentally different. I'm willing to give a community some more regulatory authority than the County (unless we get into the architectural review discussion.)
The County is missing the point in its energy efficiency daze, much as Boulder started to do with the Climate Action Plan earlier this year. They equate sheer size and/or aggregate energy use with inefficiency, which for some people trails out on a continuum of immorality. I would argue the larger a home you want to build, the more it is in your best interest to build in an efficient manner. The County doesn't need to force you to do it. You literally pay the price if you build inefficiently.
I sense to some people, the size of some other people's homes seems absurd, and wasteful, and that's where the sentiment to get complex with land use regs comes from. If I had to make a sweeping choice, I would says government should not regulate building sizes. From that black/white choice, in reality I would work towards the center of regulations based on individual scenarios. The alternative mindset is government should regulate, and now a person needs convincing as to why not. I prefer to not trust government to make the best choice and debate why government regulation is necessary, not the other way around.
3 comments:
I am unfamiliar with the details of the regulations. Thanks for the link, I will have to take a look.
My gripe is that "property rights" is used in debate to signify great princlipes, but it is often a placeholder for thinking that has yet to occur.
For example, "land within a community's boundary" is subject to "a different level of expectation for that property's use." What does that mean?
Perhaps Boulder County's proposed regulations (if these are really regulations and not just a planning exercise) are the result of political sentiment that is irrational. But even if that is the case, what does this have to do with property rights? Your hypothesis is that the regulatory stick in the bundle of property rights should be of no effect unless it has some good purpose. My answer to that is, of course.
However, general principles exist on both sides of the coin. Controlling demands on infrastructure and resources is at least a legitimate premise for regulation (for example, the design of a septic field necessary to serve a rural residence may be related to building size). I simply cannot agree residents of the County should expect that the quality of development will suffer just because it is in a rural area.
Rather than argue in absolute terms about property rights, isn't the question really whether regulation makes any sense? If you want to cast this in economic terms, land use regulation may be justified where development practices fail to contain externalities. I won't register any opinions yet on whether the County's regulations fit this rubric, but I do know that development has external impacts regardless of whether it occurs inside or outside city limits.
One additional thought is that I think there is a vast difference between debating the merits of a specific piece of regulation versus debating the merit of regulation at all.
We can be justifiably outraged when government seeks to regulate matters that it lacks the legal authority, expertise, or good judgment to administer. This happens all the time, and, against the backdrop of such current events, it is easy to present a sweeping argument that government intervention is variously unconstitutional, arbitrary, and irrational. It is. So it may be popular or somehow comforting to identify with a "property rights" agenda, but I would submit that very few people really choose not to trust the government to regulate at all. Regulation is pervasive and fundamental in our markets, in our assumptions about the security of property, and in our access to resources.
Your crticism of the County's land use survey concludes with "how can the County create policy based on such conflicting sentiments?" You when your most recent post presents a "black/white choice" about property rights versus regulation, you admit that "in reality I would work towards the center..." The answer to your earlier question is that the County and other governments must create policy out of conflicting sentiments, because almost all of us have those conflicting sentiments on some level.
We love liberty but need security. One can call for the sacrifice of one principle for the sake of the other, but, in the end, it is the details that balance those values that define the solution every time.
You're right about the conflicting sentiments. I would say my impassioned question of how can the County base policy with conflicting sentiments shown in the survey is not hypothetical; I want to really here an articulate justification for their actions. I may not agree, however I want to hear well-reasoned arguments from elected officials in partciular for their positions. I'm afraid too often people aren't pushing for that articulation and that's when really narrow agendas move forward unnoticed, or noticed belatedly after they've become law or otherwise manifested.
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