This article was written by a local activist who has been fighting Agenda 21/2030 in her town in NH.
Whenever an idea is unpopular, its proponents will often change the words used to describe it so that the meaning, and thus the proponents’ true intentions, are obscured.
And so it goes with the push to ‘urbanize’ your town.
If you’ve kept up with the information in this website, you know that there is a push to urbanize towns and cities, and/or to attach smaller towns to bigger cities. This is being done for several reasons.
One is to ‘redistribute’ the demographics so that people of all income levels can be integrated into your communities regardless of what kind of home they can afford. This means you can no longer form what amounts to a residents associations to assure homes of similar value are grouped together to preserve the value of each.
Another is to keep people from building in rural areas, to preserve the land for animals.
Yet another is to water down your representation by merging your town’s government into a political subdivision of the larger town, city or region. This is called Regionalism.
All of these goals are part of the United Nation’s push to confine (and thus control) people into what they call ‘human settlements’, preferably without cars, keeping them working and shopping in areas of walking distance.
This agenda is being driven by the excuse that man, by his existence and consumption, has created a climate crisis. Of course we all know this man-made climate ‘crisis’ is a hoax.
On a website called “Sightline.org” there are articles about affordable housing, exclusionary zoning, plans to change housing density through state action, suggestions for how to reframe the discussion about housing, and more.
Click here to access Sightline.org
Sightline Institute is a “non-profit research and communications center – a think tank,” with a mission “to make the Northwest a global model of sustainability — strong communities, a green economy, and a healthy environment.” They do research and publications, with a goal of influencing public policy in many areas – the environment, climate, democracy, energy, housing, etc.
Sightline’s approach to affordable housing is similar to the “new urbanism” approach, with specific suggestions on how to change commonly used terms into more acceptable language to get public buy-in. For example, instead of discussing “density,” say “workforce housing” or “missing-middle housing.” Instead of talking about “getting rid of single-family zoning,” say “lift bans that prevent modest home choices, like duplexes and backyard cottages.” Instead of using the term “units,” say “homes; choices for renters; plenty of homes, all shapes and sizes.”
So in order to make palatable the push to get rid of single-family zoning, what they are proposing is to reframe the issue through the use of language: examples are to refer to single-family zoning as “exclusionary” and only benefiting wealthier individuals and social classes. Then “inclusionary” zoning becomes a mix of housing types like “single-detached” houses (no longer ‘single-family’) and “duplexes, triplexes, and quads” (not ‘multi-unit’ buildings).
This is a marketing strategy to get the public to buy into what these groups are promoting. It is a common tactic that has been used throughout history by political groups who hire public relations firms.
We’ve seen this happen in NH with the Carsey Institute’s “NH Listens” — an advocacy group that uses the “Delphi Technique” in public discussion sessions to get people to accept ideas that have already been chosen as goals. Often these groups employ actors as ‘facilitators’.
Here are some articles to keep you abreast of the propaganda surrounding the controversy. There is also the question of whether the ‘state’ is allowed to dictate to the towns what kind of housing they must/must not allow. There is nothing in the NH state constitution that gives the state the mandate to provide for housing of any type, or to interfere with housing choices that people of their own communities have voted for.
Scroll to the bottom of this page… Sightline.org
Please pay particular attention to the Flashcard Series:
A ONE-STOP SHOP FOR OUR AFFORDABILITY MESSAGING RESOURCES (compilation) – 12.31.2019
STATE-WIDE HOUSING SOLUTIONS MATTER: TALKING POINTS – 01.31.2020
LESSONS FROM OREGON’S MISSING MIDDLE SUCCESS – 11-04-2019
EXCLUSIONARY ZONING ROBS OUR CITIES OF THEIR BEST QUALITIES – 08-24-2016
You will notice that the ‘climate change’ hoax is sprinkled liberally into the material.