This is the “poor people should stay by the railroad tracks” bond.

The NIMBYs are at it again!

Councilman David Robinson will spend some time tomorrow night trying to sell the community on his “affordable housing bond.”  It’s a NIMBY effort, designed to keep the poor people by the railroad tracks, and fully endorsed by the Worthington Alliance for Responsible Development, a special-interest PAC laser focused on keeping your taxes high and multi-use, walkable communities out of Worthington. 

You’re of course wondering why someone who is so in favor of affordable, attainable housing would be against an affordable housing bond.  Normally, I wouldn’t be!  This has one extremely serious, fatal flaw, though, that’ll keep me from supporting it unless it gets changed. 

It is restricted solely to properties zoned multi-family at the time of the bond’s passage. 

Now, that requires some explanation, so let’s break it down into a number of points. 

The restriction means it only applies to 3% of Worthington’s area

We’ll start with an easy one.  I’ve long advocated for affordable housing throughout Worthington, wherever we can put it, because having a variety of housing options in our community makes our community better.  This restriction defeats that idea.  If there’s an affordable housing idea that would get placed anywhere in our community, I want it to be eligible for this funding.  We need 100% of Worthington to be eligible.

This doesn’t even mention that a large percentage of multi-family zoning in Worthington is contained in Worthinglen, Villa Charmonte and Strathaven.  Anyone looked at housing prices in those communities right now?  That’s exactly why we need more housing everywhere else!

“Located only on parcels with specific zoning at the time of the public vote”

This one’s a bit deep, so you’ll have to bear with me.  It’s important to note out what Councilman Robinson notes here as a restriction is properties currently zoned as multi family (AR-3, AR-4.5, PUDs, etc.).

First off, there’s not that much in Worthington that’s multi-family, as noted above.  But this multiplies the problem because it calcifies our zoning to where it is today.  It means even if we, as a community, decide we want affordable housing, say, somewhere on High Street as part of the upcoming Comprehensive Plan, it wouldn’t be eligible for the affordable housing bond because it was not zoned “at the time of the passage of the bond.”  It’s really a pretty insidious little NIMBY trick to make sure our current zoning restrictions last long beyond any changes we might want to our zoning code. 

Not only that, but my understanding is that because it’s a bond issue, voted on by the voters, we may not be able to change it without having another vote.  That means an educational campaign to repeal it may be necessary, costing us time and money and potentially confusing residents on what they are voting for - who’s going to vote in favor of *repealing* an affordable housing bond?  But that’s what we might have to do to change the multi-family requirement if it passes!  This also doesn’t get into discussions about exactly how much support members of Council, such as David Robinson himself, will put into getting the bond package passed.  Politics is ugly, as I found out, and I wouldn’t put it past anyone to sprout something like this only to watch it die on the vine after it serves its purpose.  

Hats off to Worthington’s own NIMBY special-interest PAC, the Worthington Alliance for Responsible Development, on that one.  Gotta respect the game when you see it, and it’s a really nice little trick. 

Timing

By this point I think we all know Worthington Steel is leaving.  That’s a problem!  That’s going to impact our income pretty significantly.  How are we going to react to that as a municipality?  Hopefully we don’t have to cut services or increase taxes…but currently, that’s certainly a possibility.  Against that backdrop of uncertainty, is this the right time to move forward with a bond like this?  I mean, I’m personally all for it if we fix the flaws, but I know from having numerous conversations with residents about the pool levy that there’s a lot of our community who just cannot afford anything additional coming out of their wallets.  “You can’t get blood from a turnip” is the phrase I always use, and I’m extremely sympathetic to our residents. I am sure many of our residents want to see a plan from Council and the City on how we’re going to ensure we’re not going to be hit with negative results from Worthington Steel leaving before we start having a conversation about bond packages. Very reasonable!

But there’s another reason that I think is more political.  I think Councilman Robinson knows the timing is bad.  And I think he, and the NIMBY PAC that supports him, would be thrilled if it didn’t pass, because that’d be another argument they could use against any zoning changes that would result in multi-family being built in Worthington.  Politically, saying “well the residents voted, and they do not want affordable housing” is a pretty strong message!  So I don’t like the timing.  Your mileage may vary.

“Keep the poor people by the railroad tracks”

This is the part I hate the most.  I’ve railed (pun intended) about this forever.  As someone in the rail industry, I’ve seen it time and again – affluent communities love trying to push any semblance of affordable housing as close to the railroad tracks as they can.  And when you put all the above points together, this bond in its current form is a trojan horse, a $1m attempt to pay off many of us who advocate for housing equity here in Worthington in exchange to ensure we keep our affordable housing as far from the heart of our community as possible.  I think that’s dastardly.  I’m sure there will be attempts by our NIMBY special-interest PAC to say this isn’t the case. 

But use your eyes.  The map is over on the right.

If we fix this restriction, we’re starting to get somewhere!  Maybe it’s still too small, or maybe we need to tweak exactly what improvements or new builds are eligible, whatever, all the other problems are much less fatal.  But as currently concocted, this is clearly a NIMBY attempt, put forth by Councilman David Robinson in consultation with the special-interest PAC the Worthington Alliance for Responsible Development, to defeat affordable housing in Worthington for the next generation at the low cost of about a million bucks. 

Don’t fall for it.  Together, let’s get this thing fixed and do some real good for Worthington.  Write into Council and voice your support for removing the multi-family restriction and allowing affordable housing throughout ALL of Worthington here: council@worthington.org.