(RoyalPatriot.com )- Far-Left Squaddie Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is portraying herself as a supporter of housing reform promoting zoning changes to allow for “mixed-income” housing developments in traditionally single-family-only zoning areas.
This YIMBY movement (Yes in my backyard) is popular among so-called “progressives” who were thrilled when Ocasio-Cortez’s PAC “Courage to Change” put out a 2022 questionnaire last week asking candidates seeking her endorsement whether they support eliminating single-family-only zoning, reducing minimum lot sizes, and rezoning wealthier communities to permit “mixed-income” housing developments.
Between that questionnaire and Ocasio-Cortez’s November 2019 “A Place to Prosper Act” which called for zoning reform, Progressives believed AOC was fully on board the YIMBY movement too.
But according to a recent column in Reason Magazine, writer Christian Britschgi has concluded that “AOC is a Fake YIMBY.”
Britschgi writes that one week after introducing her 2019 bill, Ocasio-Cortez loudly opposed a proposal for the development of tens of thousands of new homes, many of them affordable homes, in her district.
In her objection to this “Sunnyside Yard” project, AOC called it an example of “overdevelopment” which would make New York City’s affordable housing problem worse.
In addition to that project, Ocasio-Cortez also came out against a similar project in Queens where a local developer wanted to secure a zoning change so he could build a 120-unit residential development that included a Target store on the ground floor. Ocasio-Cortez campaigned to stop it and succeeded. The developer eventually opted to build offices and medical suites instead of housing.
Her objections have convinced some that, rather than a YIMBY (yes in my backyard), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is just another NIMBY (not in my backyard).
In his column, Britschgi suggests that it might be possible that Ocasio-Cortez’s views have changed since she opposed these developments. But the fact that she introduced zoning reform legislation then a week later opposed new housing leads Britschgi to conclude she “can hold both views in her head at the same time.”
Ultimately, Britschgi writes, Ocasio-Cortez’s views on affordable housing are “a mixed bag.” She may support rezoning in wealthy neighborhoods, but in her own backyard, she is “explicitly anti-development.”
