Climate Friendly code and the Anti-Christ

 

                Saturday morning Mark was contemplating the political situation while brushing his teeth.

 “Is Trump the anti-Christ?” I asked.

“Well, the Anti-Christ is an idea, not a person, I believe,” he replied and wandered over to his bookshelf to pull out his Concordance of the Bible to check. “Yeah, John I and II. ‘This is the spirit of Anti-Christ.’ And it only shows up in this small section of the entire Bible.” What would the theoretical anti-Christ be like? We considered the concept while cleaning the house.

 At dinner, my mind wandered back to the theory of Anti-Christ, a book on the impact of investment firms buying up housing that I read earlier this summer, and the new Climate Friendly rule-making that has just come down from the state. According to our community development director, Corvallis will need 35 buildings the size of the Sierra, which has 228 units and seven stories, to meet the requirement of 8,200 units in Climate Friendly areas by 2036. Very few, if any, builders in Corvallis can build such tall structures—so the construction firms who will benefit will be from out of town. They may hire locals to do the actual construction, but the firm making the money will not be local. Big blocks of apartments, at least in Oregon, are almost always rental units, owned by someone outside of the community. “Rental leakage” where rent is paid to someone who lives elsewhere, will be even greater than it is now. These buildings will be owned by investors, who will profit from higher rents in town. Renting also makes it harder to grow roots into a community and to build equity from owning a home. The economic gap between homeowner—and the houses in Corvallis are rapidly heading to the 500,000 range—and the renter will grow.

Who benefits from this decision? Clearly not renters, who face higher rents because of investment purchases and will not be able to save to purchase a home, either freestanding or an apartment. Clearly not our local builders, who do not have the technology to build the huge complexes. Maybe the city, from increased property taxes; you can see the increases tied to several new complexes that have been built in the last ten years. I am afraid that most of the economic benefits will accrue to out of town, out of state, developers and investors, not locals, continuing to increase the gap between those who have money and those who do not, that is the root problem in society. And, maybe, that is the Anti-Christ.