The Year's Most Important Housing Vote
Proposition 33 would repeal all of California's state-level limits on rent control. It's passage could prove to be a disaster for housing supply in the Golden State.
Proposition 33 would repeal all of California's state-level limits on rent control. It's passage could prove to be a disaster for housing supply in the Golden State.
Plus: the transformation of California's builder's remedy, the zoning reform implications of the Eric Adams indictment, and why the military killed starter home reform in Arizona.
New data shows that "housing supply skeptics" can be persuaded by evidence showing that allowing more construction reduces prices. But not clear this is a good road map for addressing the problem of public ignorance in the real world.
Plus: The feds come for RealPage, a YIMBY caucus comes to Congress, and tiny Rhode Island enacts a big slate of housing reforms.
Kamala Harris' promise to end the housing shortage and adopt rent control shows that YIMBY ideas are just one of several competing housing policy agendas within the Democratic Party.
With minor exceptions, their proposals are likely to do more harm than good.
If you want "local control" of land use, the best way to do it is let property owners decide how to use their property for themselves.
Plus: Kamala Harris doubles down on rent control, Gavin Newsom issues a new executive order on housing, and the natural tendency to keep adding more regulation.
The company needs a lot of government permission slips to build its planned new city in the Bay Area. It's now changing the order in which it asks for them.
The Church of the Rock is suing, arguing that the zoning crackdown in Castle Rock violates the First Amendment.
Vineyard owners face $120,000 in fines for letting an employee and his family live on their 60-acre property without a permit.
Plus: A disappointing first round of "Baby YIMBY" grant awards, President Joe Biden endorses rent control, and House Republicans propose cutting housing spending.
The decision exemplifies a longstanding issue in legal theory. It also highlights the absurdity of zoning rules.
The Institute for Justice has launched a project to reform land use regulation.
The George Mason University economist talks about his new housing comic book and how America could deregulate its way into an affordable urban utopia.
Urban policy analyst Addison Del Mastro advances it in the Catholic journal America.
New Zealand alleviated a severe housing shortage by liberalizing regulations that had previously blocked most new construction.
In interview with Joe Selvaggi of the Pioneer Institute, I explain the harm caused by exclusionary zoning, and why it violates the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.
The project might determine whether new generations will be able to take part in the American Dream.
Plus: An interview with Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, Minnesota lawmakers try to save Minneapolis zoning reform from excess environmental review, and the White House's new housing supply action plan.
Plus: Voters in Massachusetts reject state-mandated upzonings, Florida localities rebel against a surprisingly effective YIMBY reform, and lawsuits target missing middle housing in Virginia.
Plus: Beverly Hills homeowners can't build new pools until their city allows new housing, a ballot initiative would legalize California's newest city, and NIMBYs sue to overturn zoning reform (again).
Plus: Fort Collins tries passing zoning reform for the third time, Coastal California cracks down on Airbnbs, and state lawmakers try to unban rent control.
Plus: More local "missing middle" reforms pass in Maine and Virginia, Colorado court blesses crackdown on student housing, and Florida tries to escape its slow growth past.
American cities and states passed a lot of good, incremental housing reforms in 2023. In 2024, we'd benefit from trying out some long shot ideas.
Plus: Austin's newly passed zoning reforms could be in legal jeopardy, HUD releases its latest census of the homeless population, and a little-discussed Florida reform is spurring a wave of home construction.
The state housing officials who performed the audit describe San Francisco's approval process as a "notoriously complex and cumbersome" mess.
In the face of lawsuits and accusations of attempted "genocide," Green is restoring many homebuilding regulations he suspended in July.
Two bills approved by the Legislature this week will make it easier to build affordable housing on church land and in coastal areas.
Plus: A listener asks the editors to name America's unsung or undersung heroes.
"The city is treating our private property as the city's housing stock."
Republican-controlled Huntington Beach has sued the state government to stop enforcement of state housing mandates.
An emergency proclamation by Gov. Josh Green offers developers the opportunity to route around almost all regulations on building homes.
Robert Poole's effort to defend exclusionary zoning falls prey to a combination of logical fallacies and factual error.
Often, it can be exactly the opposite.
Publicly funded leagues of cities are fighting zoning reforms in state capitals across the country.
Montana's sweeping new zoning reform is both good in itself and a potential model for cross-ideological cooperation on this issue elsewhere.
A new Pew Charitable Trusts study examining jurisdictions with that reformed zoning finds far lower rent increases there than elsewhere.
Activists who would like to see more housing built and people who build housing for a living would seem to be natural allies. A new bill in the California Legislature is driving them apart.
Developer Westside wanted to turn its 155-acre property into 3,200 homes and a public park.
Arlington's successful passage of a modest missing middle housing reform bill after an intense debate raises the question of whether YIMBY politics can practically fix the problems it sets out to address.
Restricting foreign real estate ownership has something for both sides—conservatives don't like foreigners, and progressives don't like capital.
Excessive government interference in the market hurts consumers and thwarts policy goals. It also gets in the way of the government itself.
Land use policies explain the battles over everything from the Great Recession to abortion to Donald Trump.
Yet another court decision stopping a U.C. Berkeley housing project is getting California's policy makers to think bigger about reforming the infamous California Environmental Quality Act.