Just as profits were made off segregationist housing policies in the past, today’s real estate investors and developers have a lucrative future invested in the shaping of the Comp Plan. We should be sober that they will fight hard, using all their resources, to defend against tenants and communities organizing for rent control, demands to tax developers and build affordable housing, or for a tenants bill of rights. Last fall’s elections showed this, when for-profit developers flooded hundreds of thousands of dollars behind candidates who won’t challenge their influence on City Hall.
The Minneapolis Comp Plan reflects what developers want while giving lip service to renters’ rights. Most of the progress that has been made is the result of grassroots organizing by tenants, under strong opposition from groups that are excited by the Comp Plan, like the Multifamily Housing Association. The Comprehensive Plan offers nothing concrete in the way of protections for tenants in Stephen Frenz and Mahmoud Kahn’s buildings, slumlords with long histories of violations whose names only came to light after renters organized to change things.
Renters’ rights only get vague references in the plan because the assumption is that slumlords exist because renters lack the freedom to move, not lax enforcement, stagnant wages, discriminatory practices, etc. Without renter protections, landlords have all the power to encourage renters to move along by neglecting repairs, threatening rent increases, or evicting people for any number of reasons that could permanently tarnish a rental record. Rent control and public housing are viewed with hostility, since they discourage investment.
The city’s logic amounts to punishing working people by awarding handouts to developers, incentivized by the city to build the housing most profitable for the developers and their investors, while energetically attempting to privatize rather than repair what little public housing still exists (like the Glendale Townhome residents fighting to stay in Prospect Park, many of whom are skeptical of accepting Section 8 vouchers and promises they’ll be able to rebuild community in the suburbs).
Read the entire item. Dispute this blog's title. Landlords are hosing people.