At a recent Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) meeting, a board member commented on the consequences of having “affordable” apartment units in the community. According to him, persons who live in this type of housing would be “transients” and unlikely to adequately care for the property which would have a negative impact on property values. In addition, people living in that type of housing would most likely have more than the expected number of persons living there and would also have more cars than allowed. We know this, the board member continued, because in our neighborhood this is exactly what happens.
I was surprised — but probably shouldn’t have been — to hear such blatant assertions by a public official charged with making important decisions about who does and who does not get variances from existing zoning ordinances and in turn, decides who can and cannot live in this community.
Unified Development Ordinance
What happened after these comments were made is telling. The person seeking the variance defended the housing project stating that it was his experience that persons in units like this were so happy to get good quality affordable housing that they stayed and took good care of the property. After that there was silence and no one on the BZA challenged the other board member’s comments. Not the City Planner, not the chair of the Board, not anyone on the Board said a word about these sentiments. You were left with the sense that in the mind of the Board these comments were not egregious and were not inconsistent with the general outlook of the entire community. On the other hand, perhaps the need for some comment did enter the minds of Board members, but based on their understanding of the community’s attitude on issues like this their conditioned response was to simply acquiesce. So for whatever reason, no statements were offered clarifying that this Board member’s comments were not a perspective shared by other members of the Board and not inconsistent with the values of the community.
A few days later, just by chance, I had a discussion about affordable housing with a prominent resident who serves on another City board and he expressed exactly the same argument about the impact of affordable housing in the community. While an N of 2 is not sufficient to draw general conclusions, these comments echoed views on housing I have been hearing for a long time. For example, almost 20 years ago while doing a study on affordable housing in the City we interviewed a number of persons about their attitudes on housing. One consistent theme that emerged from the elected and appointed members of the City administration interviewed was that “if they can’t afford to live here they shouldn’t live here.” While this makes some sense, this certainly is not an inclusive statement consistent with the viewpoint that Valpo is a welcoming community. In addition, it ignores the simple fact that according to ALICE reports and the census data, that half of the persons currently living in the City of Valparaiso really can’t afford to live here.
Similar sentiments about who we want in this community are expressed by current city leaders who remind us regularly that we are seeking to attract “middle class families” to come and live here. The phrase middle class families being a bit more sophisticated code word to say that we don’t want “those people” in our community.
We are left with a series of opinions that on the surface, and separately, sound somewhat innocent – those people hurt property values, if they can’t afford to live here they shouldn’t live here, we want to attract middle class families – but when combined, they weave together to form a systemic and coherent world view and culture that declares all are not welcome here. This culture is put into more acceptable and neutral language as it becomes codified in the city’s rules and ordinances and their interpretations. This process and language legitimates otherwise potentially less acceptable and offensive comments and makes them a powerful weapon of exclusion. The most obvious examples of this are found in the Uniform Development Ordinance that has extensive — most somewhat logical and some questionable — limits on what type of housing you can build, where it can be located, the size of lots, and even the types of materials, including siding. One could add to this the amount of fees required to build housing, including the cost of filing a zoning appeal. All of these reinforce the point of view that only certain people with a certain status and wealth are openly welcomed in this community.
This process follows a pattern — which we see repeat itself in other situations and in other communities — the end product of which is called malignant normality. This is a process where things that some people do or say that initially might be considered unacceptable or malignant in the eyes of many, eventually become normal and acceptable. Hearing phrases like “if they can’t afford to live here they shouldn’t live here” and we want middle class people to come here uttered over and over again and seeing these repeated by “respected” persons, they tend to become acceptable and normal and no longer questioned. They even become so acceptable that persons who initially would not agree with them eventually either espouse this viewpoint or no longer question it. They simply acquiesce. Thus originally malignant comments become deeply ingrained in the dominant culture and as indicated above, in some instances become law.
This may seem like harsh commentary regarding a city that prides itself on being a welcoming community. There did appear to be a glimmer of hope when the ValpoNext report suggested creating affordable housing in the downtown area. However, their calls for a more welcoming community for all persons — including those living in affordable apartments, those who really can’t afford to live here, and aren’t middle class — has not penetrated the worldview of the powers that be in the city, unless of course, a project of one of their own is at issue.
Larry Baas