Gentrification and the Law: Combatting Urban Displacement
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Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons Faculty Scholarship 1-1-1983 Gentrification and the Law: Combatting Urban Displacement Henry McGee Donald C. Bryant Jr. Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/faculty Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Housing Law Commons, and the Law and Race Commons Recommended Citation Henry McGee and Donald C. Bryant Jr., Gentrification and the Law: Combatting Urban Displacement, 25 WASH. U. J. URB. & CONTEMP. L. 43 (1983). https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/faculty/701 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Seattle University School of Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. GENTRIFICATION AND THE LAW: COMBATTING URBAN DISPLACEMENT DONALD C BRYANT JR. * HENRY W. McGEE, JR. ** TABLE OF CONTENTS Page I. INTRODUCTION ......................................... 46 II. HISTORIC PRESERVATION: A PARADIGM OF GENTRIFI- CATION'S CAUSES AND REMEDIES ....................... 50 A . O verview ........................................... 50 B. The Law and Historic Preservation.................. 53 C. Preservation Without Displacement: Current Issues.. 55 D. PreservingHistory and NeighborhoodHousing Opportunity ........................................ 58 III. CAUSES OF GENTRIFICATION ........................... 62 A. Condominium Conversions .......................... 62 B. Speculation ......................................... 65 • Attorney at Law and former Director of Lawyers for Housing. • Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles. This article is based on a study directed by the authors in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Bar Association's action-research project known as Lawyers for Housing. The project was greatly aided by U.C.L.A. School of Law students Renee Campbell, Phil Diri, Audelio Miranda, Susan Schwartz, and Carmen Hermosillo. The discussion of legal issues in the study was in part supported by empirical studies of three communities in Los Angeles County: Venice, North University Park, and suburban Pasadena. The three areas, though located miles apart and vastly different in everything from architecture to ambiance, had much in common, and demonstrate that gentrification was underway in the sunbelt as well as the historic cities of the northeast. Summaries of the empirical studies appear as appendices to this article. 44 JOURNAL OF URBAN AND CONTEMPORARY LAW [Vol. 25:43 C. Anti-redlining ...................................... 66 D. Real Property Taxation ............................ 68 E. Housing Code Enforcement ......................... 70 F. H UD .............................................. 72 IV. REMEDIES FOR GENTRIFICATION ........................ 75 A. Condominium Conversions .......................... 75 1. Governmental Regulation ...................... 75 a. Subdivision Map Act ........................ 76 b. CoastalZone Restrictions .................... 77 c. The Police Power ............................ 78 i. M oratoriums ............................ 79 ii. Tie-in with new construction or vacancy rates .................................... 79 iii. Low and moderate income housing requirements ............................ 80 iv. Tenant participation .................... 81 v. Relocation assistance .................... 81 2. Summ ary ....................................... 82 B. Speculation ......................................... 83 1. Governmental Regulation ...................... 83 a. Transfer Taxes .............................. 83 b. Residency Requirements ..................... 84 2. Private Anti-speculation Efforts ................. 85 3. Sum mary ....................................... 86 C. Anti-redlining ...................................... 87 1. California-Missed Opportunities ............... 87 2. The Federal Approach ......................... 88 D. Real Property Taxation ............................ 90 E. Housing Code Enforcement ......................... 91 1. Selective Enforcement .......................... 91 2. Resident Participation .......................... 92 3. Standardized Building Materials ................ 93 4. Sanction Reforms .............................. 93 5. Housing Clinics and Specialists ................. 93 6. Financial Assistance ............................ 94 F. H UD .............................................. 95 1. Programmatic Initiatives and Adjustments ...... 96 a. Demonstrations.............................. 96 b. Section 312 RehabilitationLoans ............ 96 c. Section 8 .................................... 98 d. Community Development Block Grants ....... 99 1983] GENTRIFICATION 45 e. Summary ................................... 102 2. Policy Proposals ................................ 102 3. Site Selection Criteria Revision ................. 103 4. HUD and Gentrification in the Eighties ........ 104 V. ADDITIONAL REMEDIAL STRATEGIES .................... 106 A. Land Use Controls ................................. 106 1. Exclusionary Zoning Challenges ................ 106 2. Subdivision Restrictions and Development Exactions ....................................... 108 3. Inclusionary Strategies .......................... 110 4. Transfer of Development Rights ................ 112 5. Summ ary ....................................... 114 B. EnvironmentalLaw ................................. 115 1. NEPA and the CDBG Program ................ 115 a. Socio-economic Impacts and Environmental Assessment .................................. 116 b. Mitigation." Mandatory or Discretionary?..... 118 2. Suggestions for Applying NEPA ................ 119 C. Rent Stabilization .................................. 119 1. History of Rent Controls ....................... 120 2. Specifics of Rent Controls ...................... 121 a. Exemptions ................................. 122 b. Vacancy Decontrol .......................... 122 c. Conversion and Demolition Regulation ....... 123 d. FairReturn Requirements ................... 123 3. Sum m ary ....................................... 126 D. Relocation Assistance ............................... 127 1. Coverage ....................................... 128 2. "Houser of Last Resort" Implementation ....... 130 3. Relocation Planning ............................ 131 4. The "Right" to Continued Occupancy .......... 133 5. Summ ary ....................................... 134 VI. CONCLUSION: REMEDYING GENTRIFICATION- LOOKING AHEAD ....................................... 134 A PPENDIX I .................................................. 137 A PPENDIX II ................................................. 138 A PPENDIX III ................................................ 141 46 JOURNAL OF URBAN AND CONTEMPORARY LAW [Vol. 25.43 I. INTRODUCTION Observers of urban development have adopted the term "gentrifi- cation" to describe involuntary residential displacement caused by the return of affluent gentry from suburbia to well-located but deteri- orated inner city areas.' This displacement process has remained the darker side of urban revitalization and restoration for at least two decades.2 Estimates of the magnitude and extent of the problem vary. In 1978 the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) cited data that indicates approximately 1.4 mil- lion persons are forced to move from their homes annually.3 Other studies, however, project a displacement incidence from 2.4 to 2.8 million persons per year.4 A 1975 survey indicated the problem was national in scope, with private sector neighborhood revitalization ac- tivities underway in nearly half of the 260 cities surveyed with 50,000 or more population.' Of the thirty largest cities surveyed in 1977, nearly all had some form of neighborhood restoration or revitaliza- tion in progress.6 In the continuing struggle for urban space, displacement occurs when a household is forced to move its residence because of condi- tions that affect the dwelling or its immediate surroundings. These conditions typically: (1) are beyond the household's reasonable abil- ity to control or prevent; (2) occur despite the household's compliance with all previously imposed conditions of occupancy; and (3) make continued occupancy of the residence by that household impossible, hazardous, or unaffordable.7 Gentrification, like its corollary "in- 1. See London, Gentr#Fcatlonas Urban Reinvasion: Some PreliminaryDefinitional and Theoretical Considerations,in BACK TO THE CITY 77 (S. Laska & D. Spain eds. 1980). 2. In the United States, gentrification was discussed in the literature beginning in the 1970's. Many consider the seminal conceptual work to be C. WEILER, REINVEST- MENT DISPLACEMENT: HUD's ROLE IN A NEW HOUSING ISSUE (1978). THE NA- TIONAL URBAN COALITION, DISPLACEMENT: CITY NEIGHBORHOODS IN TRANSITION (1978) established that the problem was nation-wide in scope. 3. LeGates & Hartman, Displacement, 15 CLEARINGHOUSE REV. 207, 215 (July 1981). 4. Id at 220. 5. Black, PrivateMarket Housing Renovation in Central Cities: 4 ULI Survey, 34 URB. LAND, Nov. 1975, at 3, 6. 6. Clay, NeighborhoodRevitalization andCommunity Development: The Experience and the Promise, CENTER FOR ECON. DEv. NEWSLETTER, Aug.-Oct. 1978, at 1. 7. G. GRIER & E. GRIER, URBAN DISPLACEMENT: A RECONNAISSANCE 8 (1978). Both HUD and advocates for the poor have accepted this definition of displacement. 1983) GENTRIFICATION cumbent