A new focus on affordable housing development, a delay in a key confirmation, and an unhappy Chinese leader. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of March 17-21.
Hit: A New Approach to Affordable Housing. This week, the Departments of Housing and Urban Development and Interior created a joint task force that will identify and open federal lands for affordable housing development. “Our federal lands are an incredible asset on America’s balance sheet, and we’ve been discussing how we can efficiently and effectively steward these underutilized areas to solve our nation’s affordable housing crisis,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose department owns 20% of the nation’s landmass. After years of talking about the lack of affordable housing, it appears the federal government is finally making a serious effort to address the problem.
Miss: What’s Taking So Long? It’s been two weeks since the Senate Banking Committee approved Jonathan McKernan’s nomination to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. However, the full Senate has yet to vote on McKernan’s confirmation. Why is it taking so long for this process to reach its logical conclusion? Senate Majority Leader John Thune needs to get moving on – the agency needs a full-time director.
Hit: Not Condoning Property Destruction. One of the most disturbing trends in recent days is the violence perpetrated against Tesla dealerships and charging stations, with gunfire and arson being used to destroy commercial property. Kudos to Attorney General Pam Bondi for not letting the vandals get away with their crimes – she announced charges against three individuals in Colorado, Oregon and South Carolina for the violent destruction of Tesla properties. One of these characters threw eight Molotov cocktails into a Tesla dealership. Thankfully, no one has been killed in this mayhem wave. This new surge in targeted vandalism is allegedly sparked by anger against Elon Musk’s work with the Department of Government Efficiency, but maybe these Musk-hating lunatics could take a lesson from the conservatives who were recently upset over the presence of a transgender influencer as a Bud Light spokesperson – they simply boycotted the product and didn’t burn down the bars serving it.
Miss: The Wrong Approach. Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner made a fool of himself this week by trying to evict the nonprofit O Cinema from a city-owned property because the theater presented “No Other Land,” an Oscar-winning documentary focused on life in the West Bank during the start of the Israel-Hamas war. The city commission recently provided the theater with a two-year lease extension, but Meiner unsuccessfully sought to stop the screenings and shut down the theater because he felt the film was “a false one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people.” For the record, the theater is home to the Miami Jewish Film Festival and frequently shows Israeli films. Four city commissioners and Vice Mayor Tanya Bhatt pushed back at Meiner, forcing him to withdraw his efforts at eviction. Even worse, Meiner gave the film a wave of free publicity that it would never have received without his huffing and puffing.
Hit: Xi Ain’t Pleased. Chinese President Xi Jinping is reportedly furious that the Hong Kong company CK Hutchison agreed to sell the majority ownership and operational control of the ports at the opposite ends of the Panama Canal to a consortium led by BlackRock for $22.8 billion, a record-breaking commercial property transaction for Central America. The Wall Street Journal, sourcing its coverage from unnamed “people familiar with the matter,” reports Xi planned to use the Chinese presence at the Panama Canal as a bargaining chip in dealing with the Trump administration – after all, Trump made US control of the canal a priority during the start of his new term. Xi wasn’t informed of the sale ahead of the transaction, and any attempt to belatedly scuttle the deal will make him look vindictive. Xi is reportedly angry at being boxed into a lose-lose situation – and anything that makes the Chinese leader look bad earns a well-deserved Hit.
Hit: History in the Remaking. The Hawaiian legislature is considering a bill that would redefine what the state considers as a “historic property.” The state’s current definition is entirely age-focused – any structure, site or district 50 years or older are covered, regardless of whether it has any significance to Hawaiian history. Senate Bill 15 seeks to update the definition of “historic property” by requiring the site either meets the criteria for inclusion in the Hawaii Register of Historic Places or provides cultural importance to Native Hawaiians or other ethnic groups. Dawn Chang, chairwoman of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, hoped the bill will become law, stating, “The current definition of ‘historic property’ is overly broad and does not take into consideration if a historic or cultural resource maintains sufficient integrity and significance to be identified as an ‘historic property.’”
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at phil@wrenews.com.
Photo: MicroStockHub / Getty Images
Yes, why nor build on national parks etc. You morons, Affordable housing should be near jobs and not out in the country. We need rent control and oversight of what the big corporations are doing driving up the rents when they buy and sell at will.
We also need to get rid of tax havens for corporations like the Cayman Islands.
Wow – hit that right on the nail Heidi. When I got done reading that article that was the first thing I thought of plus oh great let’s hurt global warming even more and cut down more trees to build cheap housing in areas of no grocery stores, schools, JOBS (if we have any left after the Trump 4 yr term), etc. These people in jobs related goverment power jobs have lost such reality with the real world they can’t even make rational decisions ! Gotta love their ignorant ideas! Let the “normal” Americans that make this world tick give you some good ideas that make sense. Throw Doug Burman and the Dept of Housing & Urban Development over board.
Too much incentives given to build new affordable housing. Existing, older, affordable housing projects are having difficulty surviving. Should consider allowing older, affordable housing projects to exit affordable housing rules and regulations.
Don’t think rent control has worked anywhere yet. Seek some other solutions.
Remember, the exploding National Debt. changes Everything, so Spending must be cut.