I wrote a story in this Friday’s issue of The Bulletin that covered a new zoning survey released by the University of Pennsylvania.

The Situation:

The survey compiled a database of zoning and land use lands in 227 communities in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area and discovered the following:

• The densest areas experienced the least amount of housing cost increase over the last decade.
• The suburbs were more regulated than the City of Philadelphia (Chester County was the most, Delaware County the least).
• 57% of the surveyed communities experienced housing cost increase above the rate of inflation over the last decade.
• 60% of the surveyed communities had two or more forms of approval required for a development project.

What we can infer from the study:

• Excessive land use and zoning regulation deters some developers, places additional cost on consumers.
• Environmental and open space preservation drives up values of surrounding properties, reduces supply of available land while demand increases.
• Communities must choose between the competing interests of environmental and open space preservation and affordable housing.

I investigated Chester and Delaware counties and found the following:

• Chester County allocates 1/3rd of the cost for an open space project, municipalities and land trusts fork the rest. Delaware County only provides 5% of a given project.
• Chester County allocates $13 million a year for open space preservation (using property taxes to drive up the value of properties); Delco only allocated $820,000 in ‘06.
• Half of Chester’s 73 municipalities levy taxes earmarked for open space preservation.
• Delaware County hired urban planners for its 27 southeastern municipalities in 2002 to update their zoning codes, which were decades out of date, thereby reducing the amount of variances developers needed.

The Dilemma:

As conservatives, we’re against excessive regulation and rely on market competition to drive costs. Land trusts, conservationists, non-profits, foundations, and private entities can raise their own money to preserve open space without taxpayer subsidies.

However, when housing becomes more affordable, Democrats from Philadelphia move in and continue to vote Democrat– as was the case of the massive exodus of Philadelphians into the surrounding counties during the 90’s.

Are we fostering our own decline in the electorate?

Related:

The Count Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania released their 2007 agenda, calling for the General Assembly to give counties the authority to levy a realty transfer tax (a property sale) for the purpose of open space preservation. I wrote about that here.

Cantor:scandal, iraq, and spending hurt the Republican brand and it was the loss of the brand that really hurt the GOP in 06

Rich Lowry asks Cantor a question about Pres Bush possibly caving on key issues and, of course, Cantor dodges it as much as possible. Though he does focus mostly on the War in Iraq.

Another question was about the GOP capitulation on the ‘100 Hours’ agenda. Boehner defended this by saying only 3 republicans voted for all 6 proposals.

Jeb is defending George heavily and is pushing the blame to congress. His speech is on the wonders of conservative principles. The “bedrock belief in limited government”

I bet many people are currently wishing he had a name other than Bush because he would be a great candidate.

“Learning how to say no in Washington is the first step to recovery” - Jeb

He also said that his nickname is Veto Carliogne. B/c he voted 5000+ pork items which amassed nearly 2bn in savings for the state.

90,000 veto for a program called “Where you at”

He cut taxes all eight years of his governorship.

“We’ve become too timid. People don’t want photo ops. They want meaningful change”

Jeb pushed entitlement reform.

The past 10 minutes of Jeb and the questions about immigration have been coming hard and fast. He is very open borders though articulating it in a unique way that’s fairly pervasive.

He is clearly attacking Tom Tancredo and the pro-enforcement camp. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Rumors are swirling here at National Review Institute Conservative Summit that Mike Huckabee will announce his Presidential run here tommorow at 10AM

John o’sullivan has been giving a talk on foreign policy and it has some good points I’ll quickly highlight.

3 Threats
* Islamic radicalism
* Transnational progressives
* China

Islamic radicalism is winning in Europe but losing worldwide, and if we keep the fight we will win

In 50 years, 75% of world GDP will be divided between China, India, and the US which actually works to fight transnational progressivism. These new powers will not want to give up their influence to transnational progressives. In some ways the EU will be the only pro-transnational entity.

But even the EU will no longer be able to fight for abortion on demand, gay rights, etc because of the growing muslim influence.

O’Sullivan also had a great comment that we suffer from “cultural masochism”

Rivkin is now talking about the need to portray Islamic fundamentalism as antithetical to human nature. He argues part of that being democracy promotion

Ralph Reed claims 24% of the electorate are “religous conservatives.” Reed is talking about how we didn’t lose becayse we were pro-life but because we are pro-big government.Reed is making some great points, so sad he is compromised by Abramoff.

Ryan Sager is speaking now about the concept of fusionism and how Republicans won’t win until they find the appeal to libertarians again. It seems to me these guys really don’t disagree per se.

Now the big differences come out, as Ryan Sager argues we are on the wrong side of the gay marriage issue. “The biggest civil rights issue of our day.” Reed is responding by talking about a larger agenda that will appeal to libertarians but is talking about gay marriage as the defining part of this argument.

It is interesting point that gay marriage is such a divider. I would like to see polling on how many libertarians vote actually on gay marriage and not economic issues.

I think a point could be made that the pandering of the FMA as a pure political tool is definitely a mistake (politically and morally) but is this an issue that really hurts our party?

Reed talks about the fact that it was a judicial fiat that brought marriage to the forefront. Sager responds that it still was a wedge issue, and demeanizing homosexuals to gin up more evangelical, african americans, and latinos.

One questioner brought up the latino vote and if the family issues weren’t the best way to win them over. Sager responds that libertarianism will win them over. I think this is perhaps Sagers weakest point so far. Reed is talking about the success of the GOP with hispanics in Georgia.

Sager says success was due to school choice not gay marriage or abortion.

Uh oh Terri Schiavo comes up…

Reed lays the smack pointing out that the younger cohort may be pro-gay marriage but they aren’t married yet. But his best point was that the reason we lost all the swing cohorts in 2006 was the war in Iraq and not gay marriage, which is supported strongly by the exit polls.

Reed talks about Casey, Heath Shuler, etc

The next panel is on “is small government a big joke” and prof olasky is currently discussing why we need to not reject compassionate conservatism just because the Bush administration has screwed it up so bad.

One of his strongest points has been how much more effective small non-profits were at katrina relief compared to the Feds. He advocates a charitable 500 tax credit whereby you direct 500 to a non-profit of your choice. Interesting idea.

Paul Ryan and Pat Toomey also spoke on the panel and have spent a lot of time talking about why small government wins. Pat shared that a recent gallup poll showed 61% of americans said big government is the biggest threat to america. (The other options being big labor, and big business).

He also noted that the C4G poll on the eve of the election showed that the american populous thought the democrats were the small government party. Ugh.

Another interesting point Pat is currently making is that middle class entitlements are “the biggest driver for big government”

This has been a great conference so far up next is a debate between Ralph Reed v Ryan Sager on where do religous conservatives belong in the party

Let’s all ignore his baggage for a second, he is here at the NR Institute event and he is burning the place down.

He really has the intellectual chutzpah that conservatives have lacked since Bush’s presidency

Update: “Consulting class” has destroyed the GOP. As a part time consultant, I couldn’t agree more