Please correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm just hearing about this, but is anyone following the Golf Course vote in Denver? My understanding is that a private developer owned a golf course and wanted to develop it and had some sort of agreement with the city to build apartments, with some being subsidized, and leave some parkland. A vote was held yesterday on whether to go with the developer plan or keep it a golf course and the keep it a golf course plan won.
The Denver branch of DSA supported a NO vote to prevent the developer from developing the site which seems absurd to me. It seems like Denver DSAs reasoning for supporting this is gentrification concerns and wanting public housing. This seems absurd to me because Denver is gentrifying with or without this development and not building new units assures people have to compete for the existing housing stock. Secondly, from the little research I have done, Denver doesn't have an existing coalition that would make public housing at this site even a remote possibility so instead of some subsidized (I know it's not enough) units we get zero. On top of all that denser urban development is one of the best things we can do to fight climate change but instead we have an empty golf course.
My local DSA chapter has done similar things and I feel like people aren't interested in improving people's lives or building actual power but just want to larp as fighting against the "Man". I don't think aligning with NIMBYs is going to accomplish anything. Most of the DSA people I know are white college educated people that are only low income because they work in the non profit sector and in a couple years will jump ship to corporate and buy a house in the suburbs.
I also feel like DSA falls into the social democratic trap of wanting government services but at the same time opposing projects that would increase government revenue to fund these projects. It just seems like a strategy destined for failure.
That just doesn't make sense to me in a city like Denver where housing costs are out of control. A quick look on Google maps and I see multiple parks within a mile of the site. Greenspace is important but people need a place to live.
Maybe, but a private entity building "affordable housing" doesn't mean that its going to be affordable or reduce the cost of renting or buying in the area.
Not building housing will definitely make things worse (see California). Some subsidized units is better than nothing and hoping for private developers to solve the problems at the absolute lowest level of the housing market isn't going to happen.
I wish DSA had some sort of coherent housing policy but it seems like all they bring to the table is reactionary NIMBYISM.
But isn't this the situation, though? The golf course wasn't being taken over by the city to build public housing, right? (Not being sarcastic, I've not gone into any deep dives on this and this has been my understanding so far.)
The decentralized nature of the DSA groups comes back to bite it in the ass once again. :nicholson-yes:
My basic understanding is the developer promised some subsidized units but in my city that tends to be not targeted at the most at need.
The alternative is it stays a golf course and there was never any serious plans for the city to build anything because a private developer owns the land.
I'm not a local though so my knowledge is fairly limited.