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Month March 2013

Ranking State Land Use Regulations

Yesterday, the Mercatus Center released the third edition of Freedom in the 50 States by Will Ruger and Jason Sorens. The authors break down state freedom among regulatory, fiscal, and personal categories. At the study’s website, readers can re-rank the states based on the aspects of freedom that they think are most important, including some variables related to land use and housing. The available variables include local rent control, regulatory takings restrictions, the Wharton Residential Land Use Regulatory Index, and an eminent domain index. Using only these “Property Rights Protection” variables, Kansas ranks as the freest state, followed by Louisiana, Indiana, Missouri, and South Dakota. Texas, sometimes cited as the state without zoning, comes in at 18th. The least free state is New Jersey, with Maryland at 49th, followed by California, New York, and Hawaii. This result — states with some of the most expensive cities being the most regulated — is unsurprising. In the places with the freest land use regulations, where a developer would be able to build walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods without going through a burdensome entitlement process, there isn’t demand for dense development. This may be one reason why the Piscataquis Village project, an effort to build a traditional city, is happening in a sparsely populated Maine county because new development of this sort is simply not permitted near any population centers. As Stephen recently pointed out, public opinion in New York tends to see city policies as wildly pro-development: In spite of the popular impression of New York as a builder-friendly city that’s constantly exceeding the bounds of rational development, the city’s growth over the past half-century has been anemic, and has not kept pace with the natural growth in population. This ranking of New York near the bottom of the index demonstrates what urban economists already know — new development […]

Shortfalls in non-profit disaster rebuilding

After receiving years of praise for its work in post-Katrina recovery, Brad Pitt’s home building organization, Make It Right, is receiving some media criticism. At the New Republic, Lydia Depillis points out that the Make It Right homes built in the Lower Ninth Ward have resulted in scarce city dollars going to this neighborhood with questionable results. While some residents have been able to return to the Lower Ninth Ward through non-profit and private investment, the population hasn’t reached the level necessary to bring the commercial services to the neighborhood that it needs to be a comfortable place to live. After Hurricane Katrina, the Mercatus Center conducted extensive field research in the Gulf Coast, interviewing people who decided to return and rebuild in the city and those who decided to permanently relocate. They discussed the events that unfolded immediately after the storm as well as the rebuilding process. They interviewed many people in the New Orleans neighborhood surrounding the Mary Queen of Vietnam Church. This neighborhood rebounded exceptionally well after Hurricane Katrina, despite experiencing some of the city’s worst flooding 5-12-feet-deep and being a low-income neighborhood. As Emily Chamlee-Wright and Virgil Storr found [pdf]: Within a year of the storm, more than 3,000 residents had returned [of the neighborhood’s 4,000 residents when the storm hit]. By the summer of 2007, approximately 90% of the MQVN residents were back while the rate of return in New Orleans overall remained at only 45%. Further, within a year of the storm, 70 of the 75 Vietnamese-owned businesses in the MQVN neighborhood were up and running. Virgil and Emily attribute some of MQVN’s rebuilding success to the club goods that neighborhood residents shared. Club goods share some characteristics with public goods in that they are non-rivalrous — one person using the pool at a swim club doesn’t impede others from doing so — but club […]

Many Market Urbanist Elements in DC’s Zoning Rewrite

Yesterday at Slate Matt Yglesias pointed out the poor logic behind AAA’s opposition to the elimination of some parking minimums in the DC zoning reqrite. AAA is not alone, joined by many DC residents who oppose the rewrite that will introduce some deregulation in parking requirements and zoning. The rewrite includes a few basic changes, and Greater Greater Washington provides excellent coverage of each: Eliminate parking requirements for some transit-rich neighborhoods Permit homeowners in some neighborhoods to rent out accessory dwellings such as basements or carriage houses Remove the 30-foot width requirement for developing alleyway homes Allow more cornerstor commercial development in residential neighborhoods Simplify the Planned Unit Development approval process Initially, the plan included a proposal to switch from parking minimums to parking maximums, but fortunately this proposal was rejected in favor of allowing developers to build parking based on what they think will be profitable, allowing for a freer market in parking. Now, those who assert that eliminating subsidies to driving amounts to a “war on drivers” are left without basis for their argument. I am not too enthusiastic about the zoning rewrite because it doesn’t go nearly far enough in permitting a greater supply of housing. It makes no significant changes to allowable floor area ratios, only permitting greater density by tinkering around the edges. However, as the zoning update is focused on simplifying the zoning map and allowing some increased freedom for developers to build what they think consumers want, it is in many ways a step toward market urbanism. It will benefit some homeowners and their renters by permitting accessory dwelling rentals. Additionally the attempt to simplify the Planned Unit Development process could improve rule of law in DC development and take steps toward leveling the playing field for developers. Perhaps the most significant element […]

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