The Record’s staff writer, Roger Phillips wrote and article called, “ Inclusionary housing program to be studied” on December 20, 2015.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
STOCKTON — Enacting an inclusionary housing law either would be a potential step toward easing Stockton’s chronic need for suitable homes for the city’s lower-income residents or a communist plot hatched by infidels who worship at the feet of Karl Marx.
It depends on whom you ask.John Beckman, who heads the Building Industry Association of the Greater Valley, made it clear last week he is no fan of government-adopted inclusionary housing laws. Forcing the wealthier to support the housing needs of those with lower incomes by placing financial mandates on them is “a crazy, harebrained solution,” Beckman said.
“The concept of inclusionary (housing) comes straight from Karl Marx,” he added. “There’s not a more communist-style policy. … You’re singling out the new homebuyer as the one and only class of person in the entire city who can solve a citywide problem.”
With much milder rhetoric than Beckman’s, advocates for affordable housing in Stockton stand at the opposite end of the spectrum. They say inclusionary laws, which require builders to incorporate an affordable-housing component in their market-rate plans, are an idea well worth studying.
“Stockton has a very limited toolkit to encourage the development of affordable housing,” Jon Mendelson of Central Valley Low Income Housing said. “This is a tool the city has not taken advantage of. It’s a tool I believe should at least be considered.”
The City Council voted unanimously last week to support studying whether Stockton should adopt an inclusionary housing program. That study is a small nugget in a 321-page draft of Stockton’s housing-element document projecting the city’s residential needs for the next eight years.
Read the full article here.