Who lives in Charlestown’s “affordable housing?”

900 lucky Charlestown properties may soon carry a new label

By Will Collette

Planning Commissar Ruth Platner and Town Council President Tom Gentz have a plan to change Rhode Island law to solve Charlestown’s affordable housing dilemma.

Under current law, Charlestown has very little affordable housing - only 53 units, when we should have at least 332. We have low and moderate income families and we have homes that have depreciated a lot in value. But we have very few units of housing that the average working family or retiree can afford to buy or rent.

But Platner and Gentz intend to fix that by figuring some way to get the General Assembly and Governor to scrap the existing state law and substitute a brand-new statute - let's call it the Platner-Gentz Affordable Housing Deconstruction Act (and see if it sticks) - that essentially eliminates the need for any city or town in the state to do anything about affordable housing. Problem solved and it will hardly cost a nickel.

Impossible, you say? Amazing? Before blowing off this latest scheme as another hare-brained CCA fantasy, let’s look back at history.

A two-fer: batter-covered fries and ketchup!

In 1981, the Reagan Administration wanted to cut $1 billion from the federal school lunch program, but they didn’t want it to look like they were robbing kids of nutrition.  Answer: re-classify ketchup and pickle relish as vegetables and you save $1 billion that would otherwise be wasted on giving the kids frozen, canned or fresh vegetables. 

After the famous Love Canal toxic waste dump made national news, the Reagan Administration also found itself jammed up by lots and lots of old toxic waste dumps that were going to cost billions to clean up. Solution: raise the danger threshold for classifying a toxic waste dump a hazard. 

Stringfellow toxic waste site in Riverside, CA

[Personal note: I was working in the national environmental movement when this was going on. One of my wittier colleagues, Dr. Peter Montague, called the redefining of what is hazardous “linguistic detoxification.” The rest of us called it “moving the goal posts.”]

In 2004, the Bush Administration, having absolutely no clue about history, decided to take their turn at saving money on government nutrition programs. They too decided to save money on kids' food programs by declaring a  new vegetable - batter-fried frozen French Fries (although after the Iraq invasion, they were called Freedom Fries because the French thought the Iraq War was stupid and said so publicly). 

In that time honored tradition of solving social problems by giving them new definitions, Platner and Gentz intend to bring Charlestown into full legal compliance through the proposed Platner-Gentz Affordable Housing Deconstruction Act which creates this new definition:

“Affordable housing” means any housing that is assessed by a local tax assessor pursuant to the provisions of 44-5-et seq. at or below the amount eligible for rental or a conventional mortgage for a household with an income that is at or below 80 percent of the area median income (“AMI”).  R.I. Housing shall cause to be published by regulation a table of affordable housing values based on household size by community on an annual calendar year basis. You can read the entire proposed Platner-Gentz law here.

Presto chango! The magic number for Charlestown is an assessed value of $216,273. "Any housing” means every single-family, two-family and multi-family house, every mobile home trailer (note to Gordon Foer – not recreational vehicles), every condo, every seasonal and vacation house, every farm and every unit within a mixed use building.

Having solved the affordable housing problem,
Gentz turns his hand to re-building affordable cars.
After all, how much can a used Porsche cost? 
Gentz has one that is assessed at ZERO.

Analyzing the list of all 4,941 Charlestown residential properties, my colleague Tom Ferrio was able to identify 903 that are assessed at less than $216,273.

Under existing RI law, we need at least 332 affordable housing units—especially rentals—but only have 53 at present that qualify.  But under the Platner-Gentz plan, the problem is solved by doing nothing more than changing some words and doing a re-count.

Ruth Platner can go back to her farm and plant cotton and soybeans. Tom Gentz can go back to restoring classic Porsches, but not until he hangs a “Mission Accomplished” banner on Town Hall.

But what’s going to happen to the 903 lucky Charlestown properties? Answer: nothing.

Will life be better for the people who live in those 903 properties? Nope.

Will life be any better for anyone else in Charlestown? Nope, except maybe for the millionaire property owners who support the CCA and really don’t want any more real affordable housing in Charlestown.

Let’s take a closer look at the 903 soon-to-be-dubbed affordable housing units in Charlestown. Of these, at least 230 are condos (170 at Castle Rock alone). At least 131 are mobile homes, a.k.a. trailers. At least 44 are seasonal, meaning not habitable year-round. Three are farms. Three are multi-family. One is four-family. Four are two-family. The rest are single-family homes.

One out of three of these homes are owned by non-residents who are either not from Charlestown, or who own the property as a beach or investment property.

Connecticut residents own 9% percent of the properties that would be re-classified as affordable housing. Massachusetts and New York residents own another 7%. People from 13 other states own 3.5% of Charlestown’s new affordable housing stock. 14% of Charlestown’s new affordable housing stock is owned as a second home or as an investment.

Here are four people you’d never think to lump together: Planning Commissar Ruth Platner, Platner's PC sidekick Linda Fabre, town curmudgeon Jim Mageau and Progressive Charlestown co-editor Linda Felaco. What do these four have in common? Under the Platner-Gentz Affordable Housing Deconstruction Act, the homes all four live in would be reclassified as “affordable.”

At no benefit to them. At no benefit to any working family in Charlestown. At no benefit to any of the sons and daughters of Charlestown residents who would like to start a family and continue living in Charlestown. At no benefit to any elderly person who would like to downsize to an affordable rental unit. At no benefit to any town employee, volunteer firefighter or friend or relative who would like to live in truly affordable housing in this town.

Since Ruth Platner, with a 13.5 acre piece of land and a 2436 square foot house and an assessment of only $203,100, would find her own home newly classified as “affordable,” you have to wonder: what’s her angle? 

I wonder too. Is this a case of Ruth saying, “I’ve got mine – the rest of you can stay the hell out” or something else? 

Some will say it's impolite to ask such questions or raise such issues. It's tantamount to declaring a "class war," some will say.

But the war has already begun. It started a long time ago.

And in recent years, it has intensified as the Charlestown Citizens Alliance has taken over town government.

Class war has been going full throttle ever since Ruth Platner took over the reins at the Planning Commission.

Except the war was being waged by Charlestown's elite against Charlestown working families. But as the saying goes, "they only call it class war when we fight back."