The Need for Prick-Proof Housing Laws

Plus: the damage done by inclusionary zoning, total YIMBY victory at California gubernatorial forum, and Trump's reversion of build-to-rent

Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week, we have stories on: 

• A new report finds that Portland, Maine's inclusionary zoning law is crushing housing development. 
• A New York Times-hosted gubernatorial forum where everyone tried to sound like a YIMBY.
• President Donald Trump's rapid reversion to supporting an effective ban on build-to-rent housing. 

But first, we cover how Massachusetts' particular approach to zoning reform makes it too easy for local governments to be pricks. 

---

Massachusetts' Need to Prick-Proof Its Housing Policy 

Marblehead, Massachusetts, resident David Modica has gone viral for asking at a recent Town Meeting whether people in town were "being pricks" for attempting to comply with a state housing production law by upzoning a golf course that, in all likelihood, is not going to be redeveloped into housing. 

It's a funny clip that's made only better by a planning board member conceding in his response to Modica that upzoning the golf course was indeed not intended to merely meet the on-paper requirements of state housing law without producing new housing. 

This guy is trending on MBTA multi-family zoning "are we kind of being pricks?" pic.twitter.com/lZV5RRccNu

— The Young Jurks (@TheYoungJurks) May 5, 2026

Modica has since been profiled by the local Marblehead Independent and The Wall Street Journal. There's been some additional commentary from YIMBYs agreeing with Modica that Marblehead residents are, in fact, "being pricks" by going to such great lengths to avoid building housing in the exclusive town. 

If Marblehead residents are being pricks, however, it's because the state law enables them to be pricks. While Modica's comments were aimed at his fellow residents, the planning battle he found himself in the middle of illustrates deeper flaws in Massachusetts' chosen means of boosting housing production. 

If the state actually wants to build more homes, it needs to prick-proof its housing policy. 

The state law at issue at the now-viral Marblehead Town Meeting is the MBTA Communities Act. Passed in 2021, it requires localities to create new zoning districts where new multifamily housing is allowed by-right—meaning it could be built without special permits and discretionary approvals. 

The state law also set minimum standards for how much land would have to be covered by localities' new multifamily zoning districts and how many units would have to be allowed within them. Marblehead was required to upzone at least 27 acres to accommodate a minimum of 867 new units. 

One problem with Massachusetts' approach is that the state is leaving it up to anti-development localities to upzone themselves when they don't want to. 

That creates a procedural challenge in Massachusetts, where localities have robust systems of direct democracy. Over the course of two town meetings and one referendum, Marblehead residents rejected or overturned zoning plans that brought it into compliance with the MBTA Communities law and would produce a little bit of housing. 

The town was one of nine communities sued by Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell in January for failing to comply with the state's housing law.

In response, the town planning board put their heads together and came up with a fourth, now-adopted zoning plan, that placed almost all the apartment housing it needed to permit on a local golf course. 

State officials approved this plan prior to the town meeting where Modica's comments went viral. 

These kinds of games will be familiar to anyone who's observed California localities evading their state's housing goals by upzoning veterans' cemeteries and thriving businesses. 

One could maybe fault the Massachusetts Legislature for having California's example and still failing to build a more robust remedy into the law. (In fairness, the MBTA Communities law requires many communities, albeit not Marblehead, to upzone around transit stations specifically.) 

The more serious problem with the law revealed by the Marblehead episode is that neither NIMBYs nor YIMBYs think the 18-hole golf course that's to be zoned for by-right multifamily development will actually be redeveloped. 

Golf courses are, after all, land-hungry enterprises that are often the target for residential development projects. One might assume that would be the case in the small, housing-starved state of Massachusetts. 

Granted, this golf course in particular, Tedesco Country Club, is exceptionally ritzy, with initiation fees of $40,000 and annual membership fees of almost $8,000. By staying a golf course, the property gets a massive property tax break. 

Even so, with median home prices hovering around $950,000 in Marblehead, one might think a developer could make more money by covering the golf course with market-rate apartments that will rent for a lot more than $8,000 a year. 

The fact that no one expects the golf course to be redeveloped could suggest the MBTA Communities law doesn't require localities to zone for enough new units to make big projects possible. Or it could be that the law allows localities to pile too many regulations onto the new multi-family districts they create. 

Marblehead's new multifamily district on the golf course requires minimum lot sizes of 27,000 square feet, all sorts of design and landscaping features, two parking spaces per dwelling unit, a height limit of 35 feet, and a third of the lot (excluding parking spaces) left as open space. Projects of six or more units must also make 10 percent of those below-market-rate affordable units. 

All of those rules limit the feasibility of new development, in addition to any potential developer's need to compete with rich golfers for the land. 

Most Massachusetts communities are generally falling into line with the MBTA Communities law. Time will tell how much of that compliance is substantive or paper-thin, a la Marblehead. 

Instead of waiting for the results of its planning mandates to come in, the state could adopt simpler, more direct zoning reforms. 

For instance, instead of telling towns they need to create a new zoning district where apartments will be allowed, the state could just pass a law saying apartments are allowed in commercial zones. (Texas passed just such a law last year.) 

Though none have passed, some states have considered bills that would give property owners greater rights to challenge zoning restrictions in court and require courts to treat zoning restrictions as tantamount to free speech restrictions. 

Laws like that are maybe a tougher political lift. If passed, they'd make it a lot harder for the pricks to block new housing.

---

Portland's Inclusionary Zoning Policy Is Killing Development 

Portland, Maine's enhanced inclusionary zoning (I.Z.) requirements are increasing costs for developers and reducing housing development, according to a new report commissioned by the city's planning department. 

While construction costs and interest rates have worsened market conditions for development in recent years, increased affordability requirements approved by voters in 2020 have "functioned as a marginal cost that works to push projects from narrowly feasible to more than narrowly infeasible," reads the report. 

Beginning in 2015, Portland adopted an inclusionary zoning policy that required developments of ten or more units to include 10 percent "affordable" units, in which rents were capped at 30 percent of 100 percent of area median income. Developers could also satisfy the inclusionary zoning requirements by paying in-lieu fees. 

In recent years, local activists associated with the Maine branch of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have proven remarkably successful at passing their left-wing housing policies via ballot initiatives, including a rent control law that caps rent increases below inflation, tighter energy efficiency standards, and additional restrictions on evictions. 

In 2020, DSA activists also sponsored a successful ballot initiative that tightened the city's inclusionary zoning law to require 25 percent of units in ten-plus unit developments to be affordable. It also lowered the maximum allowable rents to 30 percent of 80 percent of area median income. 

Under the original inclusionary zoning requirements, developers got approval for 40 I.Z.-applicable projects totaling 2,065 units, of which 164 were affordable units. Of these, 26 projects, totaling 1,436 units, were completed. Developers added 118 affordable units and paid $3.4 million in inclusionary zoning fees. 

Under the new inclusionary zoning requirements, developers proposed only 18 I.Z.-applicable projects totalling 1,453 units, of which 326 would have to be affordable units. 

That represents a 55 percent fall in the number of projects subject to inclusionary zoning requirements. As the report notes, that actually understates the negative impact of inclusionary zoning, as the actual rate of project completions subject to the enhanced requirements absolutely tanked. 

Only three projects subject to the new I.Z. requirements have been completed, of which 43 are affordable. Developers paid $0 of in-lieu fees. 

Development conditions certainly worsened during the 2020–2025 period when the new inclusionary zoning requirements came into effect. Mortgage rates, construction costs, and land costs all increased. 

Defenders of inclusionary zoning might argue that declining market conditions, not increased affordability requirements, are causing the drop-off in development. 

But the city-commissioned report stresses that declining market conditions and the higher I.Z. compliance costs compound on each other to reduce development.

Under the 2015–2020 market conditions and I.Z. requirements, the gap between break-even rents and maximum affordable rents for households making 80 percent of the area median income was at most a few hundred dollars. In some years, developers could still make money charging the affordable rents. 

But in the 2020–2025 period, the gulf between the maximum allowable affordable rents and break-even rents has widened to just under $1,800. 

With developers losing nearly $2,000 a month on affordable units, the requirement that they build more money-losing affordable units has naturally been a major suppressant of new development. 

At present, incredibly high market-rents of around $4,000 a month are necessary to make inclusionary zoning projects feasible, which the city-commissioned report says is more than people are going to pay in the Portland market.

"The issue is that the current policy requires a level of cross-subsidy that the Portland market is presently unable to generate. This creates a high risk of prolonged stagnation in the development pipeline, as projects remain in an approved but unfinanceable state," concludes the report. 

The report highlights the self-defeating nature of inclusionary zoning requirements. A policy designed to increase affordable housing must be paid for by lost production and higher market-rate rents. Anyone who doesn't qualify for an affordable unit or isn't selected for one is left paying more for housing. 

One might argue that's an acceptable trade-off if it means some people who'd be unable to afford market rents are still able to afford to live in the city. But under Portland's new, post-2020 inclusionary zoning requirements, very few affordable units are being built. 

Even those for whom the policy is intended to benefit are missing out. 

---

An Abundance of Gubernatorial Candidates Talking About Housing

It's a sign of the YIMBY victory in the war on ideas that, in a gubernatorial forum on housing policy hosted by The New York Times' Ezra Klein, each of the five Democratic candidates on stage positioned themselves as the governor who'd slash the most red tape and build the most units. 

There was wide agreement between candidates that California's housing costs are high because the state overregulates home building, and that making housing construction faster and cheaper was necessary to make the state affordable again. 

These might sound like pretty obvious, common-sense positions to hold. Indeed, they are. Grading on the curve of the California liberalism, it's a tremendous improvement that all the major candidates mouthed some version of "build more, costs go down." 

And while the word "financialization" did get thrown around, and calls for subsidies flowed freely, no one on stage tried to claim the lane of community defender standing up to big, bad developers with a platform of aggressive rent control and public housing. 

Former Rep. Katie Porter (D–Calif.) and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan gave the most detailed and down-the-line YIMBY comments about the need to speed up the home permitting process and cut impact fees on new housing. 

Porter notably criticized "prevailing wage" requirements that effectively force developers to use more high-cost union labor. Mahan was the most explicit in endorsing state-level zoning reform. 

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa likewise criticized impact fees and Los Angeles' voter-passed "mansion tax," which has contributed to a major decline in multifamily housing construction. 

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra was arguably the most conventionally liberal candidate. He defended prevailing wage mandates. The one specific anecdote he told on stage about his time enforcing state housing laws as California's attorney general involved a lawsuit he filed to stop a housing project over fire safety concerns. 

Billionaire Tom Steyer, in keeping with his written housing platform, sounded a lot of YIMBY notes about the need for zoning reform. He also proposed the most interventionist solution to the state's housing crisis. 

Steyer's big idea is to have the state government place massive orders with manufactured housing companies, which will allegedly help them achieve economies of scale and thus reduce per-unit construction costs. His other major initiative is to hike commercial property taxes, which will then give local governments the fiscal room to lower impact fees.  

Klein said on stage that the two leading Republican candidates, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative politico Steve Hilton, were invited but did not attend. 

One can argue that the sense of consensus on the stage had to do with the fact that it was a forum, not a debate, and was hosted by Klein, who is coauthor of the book Abundance, which, as the name might suggest, calls for YIMBY reforms to get the country building again. 

For all the criticism of the ways California made housing too expensive, there was still a lot of buck-passing. 

When Klein asked the candidates why affordable housing took so much more money to build in California than Texas, Porter said it was because affordable developers needed to piece together multiple sources of subsidies, and Steyer said it was because the state wasn't ordering manufactured homes in bulk.

The counterpoint, of course, is that affordable developers in Texas face similar financing constraints. The Lone Star managed to keep construction costs low without an industrial policy for manufactured housing. 

The most pessimistic takeaway from Klein's forum, expressed at length by U.C. Davis law professor Chris Elmendorf on X, is that even the most YIMBY governor is still going to have to work with a Legislature that is a lot more devoted to protecting special interests than boosting housing production. 

Watching @ezraklein grill the candidates for CA governor on housing policy was a vertiginous experience.

tl, dr: "Abundance" has won the war of ideas, but not the war of legislative attrition in Sacramento. And no one's talking about the second war.

🧵/21 pic.twitter.com/qkw7vNOnrM

— Chris Elmendorf (@CSElmendorf) May 10, 2026

With that said, it's a good thing that in a 90-minute forum devoted exclusively to housing policy, all the leading Democratic candidates generally grokked that the less housing that's built, the more expensive housing will be, and that government regulation plays a major role in limiting construction. 

---

Trump Is Back to Supporting an Effective Build-to-Rent Ban 

Last week, Politico reported that President Donald Trump was displeased with a provision in a Senate-passed housing bill that would effectively ban build-to-rent developments of single-family homes. 

While Trump had vocally supported a crackdown on corporate ownership of single-family homes, he reportedly felt the build-to-rent restrictions went too far and was on the verge of posting on social media about it, said Politico. 

Welp. Either that scoop was wrong, or Trump changed his mind, because the president has now taken to the airwaves to urge the House to pass the Senate's bill with the build-to-rent restrictions in place. 

The American Dream doesn't belong to the highest bidder on Wall Street. It belongs to the American people, who work hard, save up, and play by the rules.

I applaud President Trump's leadership on this issue and urge the House to pass this bill. pic.twitter.com/mZ5dldUXid

— JD Vance (@JDVance) May 11, 2026

To quote Homer Simpson: "Some people never change. Or they quickly change and then quickly change back." 

For more background on how exactly the Senate bill would all but ban build-to-rent housing, and why that's bad for housing supply, read my article from the latest print issue of Reason. 

---

Quick Links 

• CalMatters takes a deep dive investigation into the waste and delays in California's premier pandemic-era program to move the homeless off the streets and into hotels.
• John and Marcella Seidensticker are challenging the California Coastal Commission's refusal to grant them permission to rebuild their home unless the couple agrees to "promptly" demolish the new home at the agency's request. 
• The New Hampshire Legislature eases zoning restrictions on home-based businesses and childcare businesses.
• This is the kind of can-do attitude you want from your head of government.

It's time to build. pic.twitter.com/FMVRs8id6m

— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) May 12, 2026

• Housing is a human right, but policy has apparently been too favorable to the people who build housing.

Seattle has one of the worst housing crises in the country. I see it every time I'm home in my district.

People working full-time jobs who can't afford rent. Teachers, nurses, and transit workers who can't live in the city they serve. Families on housing assistance waiting…

— Pramila Jayapal (@PramilaJayapal) May 9, 2026