BRATTLEBORO-Two years ago, as the Brattleboro Selectboard was considering a suite of changes to the town's land use regulations brought forward by the Planning Department, the board lauded those changes for being "inclusionary and reduc[ing] barriers to housing."
Now, in response to the housing crisis becoming even more dire, the board has approved a transparently exclusionary interim zoning regulation that will hinder the work of social service groups' efforts to address that same housing crisis (alongside the opioid crisis, the affordability crisis, and the crisis of the transfer of $79 trillion in wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%).
The Reformer printed a letter by Rev. Ralph W. Howe rightly pointing out how exclusionary zoning - rendered constitutional by the Supreme Court in 1926 - has historically been used to further systemic racism and classism in this country. It bears noting that the rationale used by those conservative justices to rule against otherwise sacrosanct common-law private property rights was that the state has a right to regulate land use as a part of its inherent "police power."
However, the fact remains that we can't police our way out of the problems presented by poverty, homelessness, and substance-use disorder, whether it is through the Police Department, the Planning Department, or the Development Review Board.
Until the Selectboard can develop the political will to shift focus and resources away from these expensive, exclusionary, and counterproductive strategies and toward actually helping address these crises, it might at least stand aside and allow those working to address those crises - and rendering aid and comfort to those suffering the most from them - to do so without harassment.
Fhar Miess
Brattleboro
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