§ 42-55-2 - Legislative findings.
SECTION 42-55-2
§ 42-55-2 Legislative findings. – (a) It is hereby found and declared as follows: there exists a serious shortageof safe and sanitary residential housing and shelter in the state available toand affordable by persons and families of low and moderate income, the elderlyand workers, and their families; this condition is conducive to disease, crime,environmental decline, and poverty, and impairs the economic development of thestate and communities and the economic value of large areas, which arecharacterized by depreciated value, impaired investments, and reduced capacityto pay taxes and is a menace to the health, safety, morals, and welfare of thecitizens of the state; this condition results in a loss of population andfurther deterioration accompanied by added costs to communities in the creationof new public facilities and services elsewhere; it is difficult anduneconomical for individual owners independently to remedy this condition; itis desirable to encourage joint efforts to clear, re-plan, rehabilitate, andreconstruct these areas; it is necessary to create inducements andopportunities for private and public investment in these activities in theseareas with appropriate planning, land use, and construction policies; it isalso necessary to assist owners of residential housing to retain and operatethese units; these activities on a large scale are necessary for the publicwelfare and are public uses and purposes for which private property may beacquired; one major cause of this condition has been recurrent shortages offunds from private sources; these shortages have contributed to reductions inconstruction of new residential units, have resulted in the sale of existinghousing owned by persons and families of low and moderate income, and have madethe purchase of existing residential units a virtual impossibility in certainparts of the state; hospital and other health care services provided atreasonable cost are of vital concern to the health, safety, and welfare of thepeople of the state, and existing hospitals and other health care facilitiesare no longer adequate to meet the needs of modern medical care; the ordinaryoperations of private enterprise have not in the past corrected theseconditions; the reduction in residential and health care facility constructionhas caused substantial unemployment and under-employment in the constructionindustry which results in hardships, wastes human resources, increases thepublic assistance burdens of the state, impairs the security of family life,impedes the economic and physical development of the state, and adverselyaffects the welfare, health, and prosperity of all the people of the state; astable supply of adequate funds for residential and health care facilityfinancing is required to encourage new housing and health care facilities in anorderly and sustained manner and thereby reduce these results; it is necessaryto create a state housing and mortgage finance corporation to encourage theinvestment of private capital and stimulate and assist in the construction,rehabilitation, operation, retention, and maintenance of residential housingand health care facilities through the use of public financing, to provideconstruction and mortgage loans, to make grants to shelters for the homeless,and to make provision for the purchase of mortgage loans and otherwise; it isfurther necessary that the corporation be provided with the power to acquireand operate housing projects on an individual or partnership basis in order tomeet the housing demands of the state; and all of the foregoing are publicpurposes and uses for which public moneys may be borrowed, expended, advanced,loaned, or granted.
(b) It is further found and declared as follows: Rhode Islandhas distinctive historical development patterns and natural systems, which arecritical to public health, welfare, community and neighborhood identity andfunctionality, and quality of life, and which merit preservation, protection,and enhancement; state and local government have planning and regulatoryprocesses that have as their purposes the accomplishment of this preservation,protection, and enhancement; it is necessary that the corporation exercise itspowers and administer its programs and responsibilities in a manner that isconsistent with and advances the purposes of duly adopted state plans,including specifically the state guide plan, adopted pursuant to §42-11-10, and with local comprehensive plans, prepared and adopted pursuant tochapter 22.2 of title 45, that have been approved as consistent with the stateguide plan.