Comment box Scope: comment response, personal opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none This insightful article from Strong Towns explains how excessively strict zoning regulations...
Comment box
Scope: comment response, personal opinion
Tone: neutral
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
This insightful article from Strong Towns explains how excessively strict zoning regulations contribute to high housing costs and other problems in society. The cute, historic downtowns of many small towns in the United States are literally illegal to build in 2024 due to these restrictions. The places you actually want to spend time in are in short supply in large part because of zoning codes.
The article goes on to describe how the popularization of zoning reform in the public discourse has begun to shift things. Strong Towns advocates for what are ultimately fairly minor changes to zoning regulations that allow for infill development, such as being allowed to build "backyard cottages" in lots zoned for single-family homes, reducing arbitrarily excessive minimum parking requirements that contribute to urban sprawl and wasted space, and permitting reasonable, visually unobtrusive increases to maximum building heights in dense areas, among other things.
Strong Towns notes that high rent costs in new construction are directly influenced by collectively high construction and permitting costs as well as a lack of housing supply in a given area. When local governments enforce very strict regulations about the kinds of housing that can exist in an area, that typically drives up costs for builders significantly. For example, minimum parking requirements in an apartment building can literally double the cost of the construction if it means building multiple levels of parking garage to support the requirement, which is unfortunately often the case.
In addition to being expensive, most of these regulations are fairly arbitrary (lacking a scientific or empirical basis) and don't specifically contribute to social well-being. For example, high minimum setback requirements and minimum lot size requirements force urban sprawl when it doesn't need to exist. Most local NIMBY regulations are exclusively aesthetic and have little or no functional value: bans on (safe, stable) rooftop decks encourage more expensive horizontal sprawl. Some are even worse: HOA requirements banning pollinator gardens are actively environmentally harmful. While aesthetics aren't meaningless, advocating for form over function to this extent is largely what is driving up the cost of housing and rent and putting many people into debt. It's not worth it. You can have reasonable regulations about how things should look, especially in historic areas, while not artificially dampening housing supply.
Strong Towns advocates for local and state-level reforms to housing laws in order to allow more flexible types of construction. It can be difficult to pass this kind of legislation at the local level because even though most people agree that housing costs are too high, most individual towns don't want to be the first one in their region to loosen regulations or else become overwhelmed with the region's "pent-up demand." However, it is still necessary and useful to make changes on the local level. In addition, Strong Towns pushes for state-wide reforms, such as Governor Gavin Newsom's 2021 Law allowing duplexes on single-family lots, to alleviate pressure everywhere in a state at once.
Something I would add to this article is the importance of transit-oriented development (TOD), which means building more housing than usual near transit stations, especially railways. TOD is important because it reduces the need for people to own personal automobiles if they don't want to and decreases transportation costs by tens of thousands of dollars annually. It also reduces the time-costs of transportation for people who take that transit line frequently, such as commuters, because they can quickly walk to the train station. Getting unnecessary cars off the road reduces traffic congestion, takes bad drivers who don't want to be driving off the road, and further reduces the need for oversized car-centric infrastructure like huge parking lots and other poor land uses. Good TOD prioritizes fairly dense housing within a 0.5-1.5 mile radius of transit lines (10-30 minute walk), give or take. It doesn't need to be skyscrapers, it just needs to be a little denser than the surrounding area. Instead of surrounding train stations with mile-deep moats of parking lots, build a garage and a bunch of apartments and other amenities (grocery stores, etc) so that people can make important trips easily. It significantly lowers housing and transportation costs, gives people multiple transportation options, increases local business revenue, increases local tax revenue, and just makes towns more accessible.
Comment box
This insightful article from Strong Towns explains how excessively strict zoning regulations contribute to high housing costs and other problems in society. The cute, historic downtowns of many small towns in the United States are literally illegal to build in 2024 due to these restrictions. The places you actually want to spend time in are in short supply in large part because of zoning codes.
The article goes on to describe how the popularization of zoning reform in the public discourse has begun to shift things. Strong Towns advocates for what are ultimately fairly minor changes to zoning regulations that allow for infill development, such as being allowed to build "backyard cottages" in lots zoned for single-family homes, reducing arbitrarily excessive minimum parking requirements that contribute to urban sprawl and wasted space, and permitting reasonable, visually unobtrusive increases to maximum building heights in dense areas, among other things.
Strong Towns notes that high rent costs in new construction are directly influenced by collectively high construction and permitting costs as well as a lack of housing supply in a given area. When local governments enforce very strict regulations about the kinds of housing that can exist in an area, that typically drives up costs for builders significantly. For example, minimum parking requirements in an apartment building can literally double the cost of the construction if it means building multiple levels of parking garage to support the requirement, which is unfortunately often the case.
In addition to being expensive, most of these regulations are fairly arbitrary (lacking a scientific or empirical basis) and don't specifically contribute to social well-being. For example, high minimum setback requirements and minimum lot size requirements force urban sprawl when it doesn't need to exist. Most local NIMBY regulations are exclusively aesthetic and have little or no functional value: bans on (safe, stable) rooftop decks encourage more expensive horizontal sprawl. Some are even worse: HOA requirements banning pollinator gardens are actively environmentally harmful. While aesthetics aren't meaningless, advocating for form over function to this extent is largely what is driving up the cost of housing and rent and putting many people into debt. It's not worth it. You can have reasonable regulations about how things should look, especially in historic areas, while not artificially dampening housing supply.
Strong Towns advocates for local and state-level reforms to housing laws in order to allow more flexible types of construction. It can be difficult to pass this kind of legislation at the local level because even though most people agree that housing costs are too high, most individual towns don't want to be the first one in their region to loosen regulations or else become overwhelmed with the region's "pent-up demand." However, it is still necessary and useful to make changes on the local level. In addition, Strong Towns pushes for state-wide reforms, such as Governor Gavin Newsom's 2021 Law allowing duplexes on single-family lots, to alleviate pressure everywhere in a state at once.
Something I would add to this article is the importance of transit-oriented development (TOD), which means building more housing than usual near transit stations, especially railways. TOD is important because it reduces the need for people to own personal automobiles if they don't want to and decreases transportation costs by tens of thousands of dollars annually. It also reduces the time-costs of transportation for people who take that transit line frequently, such as commuters, because they can quickly walk to the train station. Getting unnecessary cars off the road reduces traffic congestion, takes bad drivers who don't want to be driving off the road, and further reduces the need for oversized car-centric infrastructure like huge parking lots and other poor land uses. Good TOD prioritizes fairly dense housing within a 0.5-1.5 mile radius of transit lines (10-30 minute walk), give or take. It doesn't need to be skyscrapers, it just needs to be a little denser than the surrounding area. Instead of surrounding train stations with mile-deep moats of parking lots, build a garage and a bunch of apartments and other amenities (grocery stores, etc) so that people can make important trips easily. It significantly lowers housing and transportation costs, gives people multiple transportation options, increases local business revenue, increases local tax revenue, and just makes towns more accessible.