Moorhead Monday: Unintended Consequences

At Monday's committee of the whole meeting, we discussed three well-intentioned (I think) city programs: rental registration, vacant building designation and code enforcement. All three clearly violate private property rights and I attempted to demonstrate that these "solutions" create larger problems.

Rental registration injects politics into otherwise voluntary transactions between landlords and tenants. As with many such regulations, the arrogant nanny state believes consumers aren't smart enough to find an appropriate place to live and that landlords are out to scam renters. The burden of such actions falls disproportionately on the poor who are willing to live with chipped paint, since landlords must adhere to the regulation and increased property costs or face fines and loss of rental "privileges".

Vacant building designation attempts to force people into actively using their improved property or put it up for sale. While few people think "progress" when they see a vacant building, the city should not be in a position to demand I do anything with my property unless I'm causing physical harm to my neighbor or his property.

Code enforcement has become a method by which the majority attempts to coerce a minority into "looking like" everyone else. Your grass must be this long, your fence must be this high, your walk must be shoveled, gardening equipment may not be in the front yard, etc. I don't have a problem with individual neighborhood associations enacting goofy restrictions with unanimous consent... but it is a poor policy for an entire city to pursue: we're essentially telling people we don't want them because of how they look.

It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that I should control the actions of other peaceful adults. I've seen paint colors that make me wrinkle up my nose, apartment carpet that I wouldn't walk on, and empty buildings that seem to be decaying. But when I attempt to use government bullies to enforce MY will on another - I've violated the human rights of those owners. And I won't have any part of it.

Moorhead Monday: Fiddling with Real Estate

Tonight's council meeting included a proposal to spend $25,000 for a housing market analysis. After pointing out that we consume the entire take home pay of a median Moorhead family to do it, I questioned the wisdom of meddling in real estate in the first place.

What would be the potential action we would take on these information in the analysis? If the study confirms what we already know, that MN burdens its citizens with high tax and regulatory costs, particularly in relation to our western neighbors, we are limited to two options (one in the same at the core): transfer wealth or change the rules.

A December 28, 2010 Forum article identified that Moorhead has the highest rental prices. Why aren't developers capitalizing on that? While our state's legislature has, for the past several decades, added greater tax and regulatory burdens, for which they deserve scorn, our own city has added to them. The fact that a business had to fight for 11 years to improve its property is a symptom of the underlying problems. Those city controls not only make it harder to do business in Moorhead, the costs fall disproportionately on the poor.

Part of the reason I opposed this measure is my apprehension about what a majority of this council will do that will ultimately make the situation worse. We'll probably shift some tax burden to another segment of our citizens or dream up new rules for otherwise voluntary transactions amongst buyers, sellers and occupants. After eight more years of interference we'll commission another study to see why there are new problems in the market.

Simply put; freedom is the answer. We should empower consumers to once again drive the housing market. Problems in this market, or any other, aren't caused by too much consumer choice but by too much political and bureaucratic meddling - at all levels of government. We should get politicians out of the real estate market and let the consumers spend their money.

The resolution to commission the study passed 7-1.