Thursday, April 30, 2009

Richest county in America blasted for housing discrimination

Goochland County, Virginia, is the wealthiest county in America. This conservative, exurban bailiwick near Richmond has the nation's highest average income, based on recent tax data. Its average income is 13 times that of hurricane-ravaged St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, the nation's poorest county.

Why is Goochland County becoming so much richer? Not only does it have some extremely opulent residents that skew the average upward. According to some locals, you're also required to be rich just to move in.

Goochland County reportedly does not allow new houses that cost less than $500,000. (Ooh, an Allowed Cloud!) Nor does it permit any new apartments. Probably the only poor people who live in the county are live-in maids, or the families of folks who lived there when it was a much poorer, more rural area. Even the latter group is being priced out of the county.

Why does the county have these restrictions? If the reports that the county has these regulations are true, it's because of official hostility to poor people. It's that simple. In all cases, when a city or county has a rule like this, that's the reason.

Under these rules (if the reports that the rules exist are correct), the poor are generally no longer allowed to live in Goochland County.

For the record, rules like this are illegal - but nobody ever does anything about it. Regulations that require a minimum home value are illegal largely because they discriminate based on economic status. Cities and counties are required to ensure that the poor may live within the community.

Goochland County isn't the only offender. Several years ago, a county near Atlanta wouldn't let Habitat for Humanity build housing, because the county had classist regulations mandating a minimum house size. And you'd be shocked at how many working-class cities all over America are run by right-wing regimes that try to drive out the very residents they're supposed to represent. It happens even in my town, as the city actively pays building owners to convert apartment buildings into single-family houses.

And it's just as illegal.

I was even priced out of my original hometown by that city's unlawful favoring of developments for the rich. The city failed to require new housing to be affordable.

Unfortunately, the federal government in the past 25 years has not been serious - at all - about pursuing complaints of classism in housing.

The classist disaster unfolding in Goochland County might be different though. The county has its defenders, to be sure. But more than one person has stated that the county does indeed have regulations specifying a minimum $500,000 house value.

And folks are furious.

Goochland County being named as the richest in America was attention that wasn't exactly helpful. Several observers have blasted the county's exclusivity - and have even threatened lawsuits over the home value rules.

Federal laws need to be strengthened and clarified regarding counties and cities that practice economic-based housing discrimination. The laws have to have teeth, and the injustice has to be remedied at all costs.

(Source: http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/article/GOOC11_20090410-222045/253988)

8 comments:

  1. Its called protecting their own. All classes and races do this - Why is it bad when people a little better off do it?

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  2. Sounds like a heck of a place! I bet they don't have any problems with crack babies, bums, lazy people leeching off their hard hard work, etc... Sign me up. You can hang out with the excuse makers all day long and come up with more ways to spend federal money and increase big brother - I'm moving to rural Virginia.

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  3. OK, TinyDancer a/k/a Monroe from Too Close For Comfort, we get it...you don't like poor people.

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  4. I HAVE LIVED HERE IN GOOCHLAND FOR 6 YEARS. ITS GREAT. WONDERFULL SCHOOLS, NO CRIME AND THE LOWEST TAXES IN CENTRAL VA. ITS A MODEL MORE COUNTIES SHOULD FOLLOW.

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  5. Oh my gosh where did you get that from I live in Goochland and its not true a all ! I can't believe someone would say that because it is DEFINTALY NOT TRUE! We are nice to EVERYONE!

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  6. Dude that commet above me is so true!

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  7. My Brother and his wife built a new house last fall in Goochland and it is NOT a $500k home. They spent about $230k for the land and to have the home built. They have had no permit trouble. I live just south of Goochland and know of no such regulations.

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  8. where does your brother live? I want to report him. Mine just cost $800K.

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