Housing Justice Act, 1757
 13th Cortes Federales | |
| Long title | An Act to establish a right to adequate housing; to provide for the stabilization of rents and security of tenure; to restore and expand assistance to first-time buyers and to tenants; to direct the National Housing Fund and the taxation of land to the building of social and cooperative housing; to establish a Federal Housing Authority; to repeal the Housing Finance and Consolidation Act, 1756; among other purposes. |
|---|---|
| Bill Number | FA-1757-061 |
| Introduced by | Marcos Ferreira Gonçalves (DSP / AJNA) |
| Extent | Entire Federation of Nouvelle Alexandrie |
| Dates | |
| Bill Status | Tabled 6.XIV.1757 AN; returned to the Hopper |
| Other legislation | |
| Related legislation | |
The Housing Justice Act, 1757 (Alexandrian: Loi sur la justice du logement, 1757; Martino: Ley de Justicia en la Vivienda, 1757; Wechua: Wasi Chaninchay Kamachiy, 1757) is proposed legislation of Nouvelle Alexandrie that would repeal the Housing Finance and Consolidation Act, 1756 and replace it with a housing system built around an enforceable right to adequate housing. The bill would stabilize rents and protect security of tenure, restore and expand assistance to first-time buyers and tenants, redirect the National Housing Fund and the taxation of land toward social and cooperative building, and establish a Federal Housing Authority to build housing directly.
The bill is sponsored by Leader of the Opposition Marcos Ferreira Gonçalves of the Democratic Socialist Party, with Yuiza Bohi'o of the Wakara People's Party as co-sponsor, and is carried by the Alliance for a Just Nouvelle Alexandrie. It was introduced on 19.VIII.1757 AN as a counter-model to the government's housing settlement of the previous year, and as the legislative form of the housing campaign the opposition had pressed since the close of 1756 AN.
The bill was tabled before the 13th Cortes Federales at the end of 1757 AN on the government's majority, a procedural motion that left it in the Hopper, from which it may be taken up again. It would undo a statute barely a year in force, and the government, which holds a working majority, opposes it. Its design fights the supply-first, subsidy-free approach of the Housing Finance and Consolidation Act, 1756 on every front, restoring the demand-side help that Act withdrew while keeping the parts of it the opposition had supported.
Background
The government had settled housing law the year before. The Housing Finance and Consolidation Act, 1756, introduced by Treasury Secretary Warren Ferdinand and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Emmanuel Philibert Seydlitz and passed in VI.1756 AN, reduced five housing statutes to one, created a single National Housing Fund under the Department of Treasury, and adopted one federal definition of affordable housing. It relied on the approval of conforming housing of right, the legalization of moderate-density building, and the reform of the socialized housing tax onto a land-value basis. It carried no new appropriation, and it allowed the first-time homebuyer credits of the repealed acts to lapse. The government presented the settlement as the lesson of the property-backed securities crisis: that housing is a problem of supply, and that the way to make it worse is to push money at demand.
The Democratic Socialist Party had divided on that Act. A part of the party had supported the consolidation and the tax on land, which it read as a charge on speculation. Most of the party had opposed the expiry of the homebuyer credits and the removal of community control over development, which it argued favored builders over the people who lived where they built. The bill takes the side the larger part of the party had taken, and turns it into a program.
Housing had remained the opposition's chosen ground through 1757 AN. On the first opposition day of the session, 24.II.1757 AN, the Alliance for a Just Nouvelle Alexandrie had moved for an emergency housing and cost-of-living package funded from the returns of the Federal Sovereign Wealth Fund, timed to Federal Bank data showing rents up 9 percent and house prices up 6 percent over the year across the major cities, the median household in Cárdenas spending 34 percent of its income on housing, and renters under thirty spending more than 45 percent. The motion fell on the government's majority. Premier José Manuel Montero and Treasury Secretary Warren Ferdinand rejected the remedy, citing the crisis against demand-side support. The Aldurian Independent Coalition abstained rather than vote against housing.
The bill answers that defeat by widening the argument rather than narrowing it. Where the February motion had asked the government to act, the bill writes the opposition's whole housing model into law, and where the government had warned against pushing money at demand, the bill restores demand-side help and pairs it with building, regulation, and an enforceable right. It draws on the method Yuiza Bohi'o had pressed throughout the 13th Cortes, that a right must be written into law and made enforceable in the courts on the model of the Plan de Hato Rey, and ties the right in its recitals to Article 8 of the Proclamation of Punta Santiago, under which securing human dignity is a task of the State. The Cajamarca micrasquake, which had left families across two regions without homes, gave those displaced a priority claim in the bill on the housing it would build.
Key provisions
The bill states a right of every resident of the Federation to adequate housing, defined by security of tenure, habitability, affordability, and access to services, and makes it justiciable before the High Court of Justice, which may require an authority to account for its progress and to remedy an unreasonable failure to act. It keeps the federal standard of affordable housing the 1756 Act had set, housing whose cost does not exceed 30 percent of the median household income of its region.
The bill establishes a federal framework for the stabilization of rents, administered by the regions within standards set federally. It caps the annual increase a landlord may impose by reference to an index, protects tenants against eviction other than on grounds stated in the Act, and requires a public register of rents in the larger urban markets. It restores the assistance the 1756 Act had withdrawn, re-establishing a first-time homebuyer credit on a means-tested basis and creating an allowance to help low-income tenants meet their rent.
The bill establishes a Federal Housing Authority, within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to build and manage social, cooperative, and public housing directly. It keeps the legalization of moderate-density housing and the approval of conforming housing of right, but conditions that approval on a requirement that a share of the housing be affordable, and it restores to regional and local authorities a right of consultation over market development that the 1756 Act had removed. The public housing, ownership, chartered-cities, satellite-community, brownfield, and co-housing programs carried forward by the 1756 Act are continued.
The bill re-unifies the policy and finance of housing under the Department of Housing and Urban Development, transferring the National Housing Fund from the Department of Treasury to that department. It directs that the larger part of the Fund be applied to social, cooperative, and public building and to the assistance restored by the bill, sets a statutory floor for the Fund, and directs the returns of the Federal Sovereign Wealth Fund into it. Households displaced by the Cajamarca micrasquake are given a priority claim on the housing built under the Fund, and the government is directed to accelerate the housing promised under the Aldurian Economic Diversification and Recovery Act, 1755.
The bill keeps the land-value tax the 1756 Act had created, but removes the requirement that it raise no more revenue than the charge it replaced, directs that it be set on a progressive basis, and adds a surcharge on long-vacant housing, with the proceeds paid into the Fund. It keeps the framework for property-backed securities under the safeguards adopted after the crisis, the concentration limit and the supervision of the Federal Bank, and does not loosen them. It repeals the Housing Finance and Consolidation Act, 1756 on the commencement of its own provisions, carrying forward the department, the Fund, the programs, and the building codes so that the repeal does not dissolve them, and preserving claims already vested. Oversight passes to the Ombudsman, who would report each year to the Cortes Federales.
Legislative progress
| Stage | Date | Chamber | Action | Votes (Y-N-A) | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 19.VIII.1757 AN | Federal Assembly | Introduction and first reading | - | Presented by Marcos Ferreira Gonçalves; co-sponsored by Yuiza Bohi'o |
| 2 | 24.VIII.1757 AN | Federal Assembly | Committee referral | - | Referred jointly to the Budget and Finances Committee and the Housing and Urban Development Committee |
| 3 | 1.XIV.1757 AN | Federal Assembly | Sponsor amendments received | - | Gonçalves and Yuiza Bohi'o brought five sponsor amendments answering government and FCP criticism, covering eviction grounds, rent-stabilization review, means-tested assistance, safeguards for the Federal Housing Authority, and exemptions from the vacant-home surcharge |
| 4 | 6.XIV.1757 AN | Federal Assembly | Motion to table (carried on the government's majority) | - | Moved by Vice-President Fred Strong (FHP), seconded by Deputy Leader Jose Aqlen; the bill was tabled before any vote on its merits and its amendments were never put. Procedural under standing orders, not a defeat, the bill returned to the Hopper |
The bill united the opposition the 1756 Act had split. The Alliance for a Just Nouvelle Alexandrie carried it as a bloc, and Ferreira Gonçalves presented it as the choice the Federation had not been given the year before. "Last year the government told this chamber that housing is a market and the most it would do was tidy the paperwork. This bill says housing is a right. The country can have the first or the second. It cannot have both, and in 1759 AN it will choose." Yuiza Bohi'o said the Plan de Hato Rey had shown that a right written into law and enforceable in court was worth more than a programs a future budget could quietly starve.
The government opposed the bill and defended its settlement. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Emmanuel Philibert Seydlitz said the opposition proposed to tear up a reform that was barely a year old and had only begun to work. Treasury Secretary Warren Ferdinand said the bill was the crisis written as policy, that rent caps would dry up the building the Federation needed, that restoring the credits and lifting the cap on the land tax would push money at demand in the way the Federation had spent two years learning not to, and that a statutory floor on the Fund and a justiciable right would bind every future budget and hand housing to the courts. The Federal Consensus Party opposed the rent controls and the enlarged land tax outright; leader Francisco Gabaza called the bill a return to the policies the Federation had just repealed for cause.
The bill's reception turned, as the February motion had, on the Aldurian Independent Coalition. Its provisions on social building and on the Diversification Act's unbuilt housing spoke to the Coalition's standing grievance, but the bill would repeal the government's own settlement, which no confidence-and-supply partner could support without breaking with the government that the settlement belonged to. Coordinator Émile Bouchard said the Coalition wanted the houses and not the quarrel, and that he would not vote to repeal a law to build what the law already allowed. The Civic Governance Alliance said it would back the building and the right while pressing on the funding, as it had in February. Institute for Strategic Studies economist Rodrigo Castellanos said the bill joined two arguments that did not have to be joined, a strong case for an enforceable right and a contested case for rent control, and that the second would carry the cost of the first in the debate. The government holds the votes to defeat the bill. The bill was written to lose them in public and on the record.
Fred Strong denounced the proposal as another extravagant liability to be financed by the public purse. He particularly scorned the suggestion that evictions would only permitted on the grounds of a proposed law that did not, in and of itself, specify what those grounds were supposed to be.
The bill was tabled on 6.XIV.1757 AN. Vice-President Fred Strong moved the motion to table, seconded by Deputy Leader Jose Aqlen, and it carried on the Federal Humanist Party's majority; the Federal Consensus Party, through Virginia Mesonero, opposed the bill on supply-side grounds, preferring to amend the 1756 Act rather than repeal it. The bill was removed before any vote on its merits, and the sponsors' five amendments were never put. Under the Assembly's standing orders the tabling was procedural rather than a defeat, and the bill returned to the Hopper, where it may be taken up again. In VII.1759 AN, ahead of the general election, the Alliance for a Just Nouvelle Alexandrie moved to take the bill back up as a central issue of its campaign.
Bill text
Housing Justice Act, 1757
THE READING OF
A
BILL
TO
establish a right to adequate housing; to provide for the stabilization of rents and security of tenure; to restore and expand assistance to first-time buyers and to tenants; to direct the National Housing Fund and the taxation of land to the building of social and cooperative housing; to establish a Federal Housing Authority; to repeal the Housing Finance and Consolidation Act, 1756; among other purposes.
Housing Justice Act, 1757
Presented by Marcos Ferreira Gonçalves
Ordered, by the Cortes Federales of Nouvelle Alexandrie,
to be Printed, 19.VIII.1757 AN.
BE IT ENACTED by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Cortes Federales, in this present session assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:-
PART I
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Article 1: Citation.
- This Act may be cited as the "Housing Justice Act, 1757".
Article 2: Purposes.
- The purposes of this Act are:
- to establish and give effect to a right to adequate housing;
- to stabilize rents and protect security of tenure;
- to restore and expand assistance to first-time buyers and to tenants;
- to increase the supply of social, cooperative, and public housing;
- to direct the finance and the taxation of land toward those ends;
- to repeal and replace the Housing Finance and Consolidation Act, 1756.
Article 3: Definitions.
- For the purposes of this Act:
- "adequate housing" means housing that affords security of tenure, is fit for habitation, is affordable, and has access to basic services;
- "affordable housing" means housing the cost of which to its occupant does not exceed 30 percent of the median household income of the Region in which it is situated;
- "the Fund" means the National Housing Fund;
- "the Authority" means the Federal Housing Authority established by Article 10;
- "social housing" means housing let at below-market rents by a public authority or a non-profit body; "cooperative housing" means housing owned or managed in common by its residents.
THE RIGHT TO ADEQUATE HOUSING
Article 4: Right to adequate housing.
- Every person ordinarily resident in the Federation has a right to adequate housing.
- It shall be a duty of the federal and regional authorities, within their powers and resources, to take reasonable measures toward the realization of that right.
Article 5: Enforcement.
- The right under Article 4 is justiciable before the High Court of Justice, which may require an authority to account for the measures it has taken and to remedy an unreasonable failure to act, having regard to its resources.
RENT STABILIZATION AND SECURITY OF TENURE
Article 6: Limit on rent increases.
- The rent for a dwelling shall not be increased within a year by more than the figure prescribed by reference to an index, the regions administering this Part within the standards set under this Act.
Article 7: Security of tenure; register.
- A tenant shall not be evicted otherwise than on a ground stated in this Act and by due process.
- A public register of rents shall be kept for the urban markets prescribed by regulation.
ASSISTANCE TO BUYERS AND TENANTS
Article 8: First-time homebuyer credit.
- A first-time homebuyer credit, withdrawn by the Housing Finance and Consolidation Act, 1756, is restored, on a means-tested basis, for the purchase of a principal residence.
Article 9: Tenant rent allowance.
- An allowance shall be paid, on a means-tested basis, to assist a low-income tenant in meeting their rent, on terms set by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
HOUSING SUPPLY
Article 10: Federal Housing Authority.
- There is established, within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a Federal Housing Authority to build and manage social, cooperative, and public housing.
Article 11: Approval and affordability.
- Conforming housing shall be approved of right within the periods set by regulation, on condition that a share of the housing, prescribed by the Authority, is affordable.
- A regional or local authority retains a right of consultation over development that is not social or affordable housing.
Article 12: Continued programs.
- The legalization of moderate-density housing, and the public-housing, ownership, chartered-cities, satellite-community, brownfield, and co-housing programs continued by the Housing Finance and Consolidation Act, 1756, are continued under the Department and the Authority.
HOUSING ADMINISTRATION AND THE NATIONAL HOUSING FUND
Article 13: Administration of housing.
- The policy and the finance of housing are placed together under the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the administration of the National Housing Fund is transferred to that department from the Department of Treasury.
Article 14: Application of the Fund.
- The larger part of the Fund shall be applied to social, cooperative, and public building and to the assistance restored by Part IV.
- The annual allocation to the Fund shall not fall below the floor prescribed in this Act.
- The returns of the Federal Sovereign Wealth Fund are directed into the Fund.
Article 15: Priority and acceleration.
- Households displaced by the Cajamarca micrasquake shall have a priority claim on housing built under the Fund.
- The Government shall accelerate the housing provided for under the Aldurian Economic Diversification and Recovery Act, 1755 and shall report on its delivery to the Cortes Federales.
TAXATION OF LAND
Article 16: Land-value tax.
- The land-value tax created by the Housing Finance and Consolidation Act, 1756 is continued, with its proceeds paid into the Fund.
- The requirement that the tax raise no more revenue in aggregate than the charge it replaced is removed, and the tax shall be set on a progressive basis.
- A surcharge shall be charged on housing that has stood vacant for longer than the period prescribed by regulation.
- Land owned by the federal, regional, or local government remains exempt.
PROPERTY-BACKED SECURITIES
Article 17: Continuation of safeguards.
- The framework for property-backed securities is continued under the safeguards adopted after the crisis of 1753, including the concentration limit and the supervision of the Federal Bank, which are not loosened by this Act.
REPEALS, SAVINGS, AND TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS
Article 18: Repeal.
- The Housing Finance and Consolidation Act, 1756 is repealed on the commencement of the corresponding provisions of this Act.
Article 19: Savings.
- The Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Housing Fund, the programs continued by Article 12, the housing and mortgage ombudsman, and the uniform building codes continue in force notwithstanding the repeal.
- A claim vested under the repealed Act before the commencement of this Act is preserved.
OVERSIGHT AND CLOSING PROVISIONS
Article 20: Oversight.
- The Ombudsman shall monitor the realization of the right under Article 4 and the operation of the Fund, and shall report each year to the Cortes Federales.
Article 21: Commencement and application.
- This Act shall apply to all of the Federation of Nouvelle Alexandrie.
- This Act shall not become law unless it has been given Royal Assent by H.M. King Sinchi Roca II.
- This Act shall be published in the Federal Gazette and made publicly available within seven (7) days of Royal Assent.
- Parts IV, V, VI, and VII shall come into force on 1.I.1758 AN; Parts II and III shall come into force on 1.I.1759 AN.
- In the event any provision or part of this Act is found to be invalid or unenforceable, only that particular provision or part so found, and not the entire Act, shall be inoperative.
See also
- Housing Finance and Consolidation Act, 1756
- National Housing Fund
- Aldurian Economic Diversification and Recovery Act, 1755
- Plan de Hato Rey
