With a divided and highly polarized state government, North Carolina hadn’t gotten much done on housing and land use policy in the past few years. That changed unexpectedly last fall, when S 382, a controversial bill that combined hurricane relief with measures to diminish the powers of the … [Read more...]
Outside Montana, No Housing “Miracle” in the Mountain West This Year
Montana passed a transformative land use reform package in 2023 - the “Montana Miracle”. This year, Montana’s legislature is again considering a lot of housing bills. The western United States overall has been the most dynamic region for pro-housing legislation, which makes sense since California is … [Read more...]
Resources for Reformers: Single-Stair Midrise Buildings
As a sense of urgency builds around North America’s housing affordability crisis, researchers have begun to look beyond zoning and permitting for ways to build more housing for less money. In the wake of a movement to bring more mass timber buildings to the US and Canada, some have turned their … [Read more...]
Yes in God’s backyard… and yes up to three stories?
With state legislative seasons in full swing, a picture of the landscape of land use reform is emerging. One dynamic I’ve been tracking: Yes In God’s Back Yard (YIGBY) bills, designed to allow religious organizations (and sometimes other nonprofits) to easily use their land to build housing, are … [Read more...]
Colorado housing reform wins in Round 2
Last year disappointed pro-housing advocates in Colorado, as Governor Polis's flagship reform was defeated by the state legislature. But Polis and his legislative allies tried again this year, and yesterday the governor signed into law a package of reforms which cover much of the ground of last … [Read more...]
YIMBY wins again in Vermont
On March 25, the city council of Burlington, VT, voted to pass a major zoning reform that one observer of Vermont politics (X.com’s pseudonymous @NotaBot) compared to the celebrated overhaul of Minneapolis’s zoning code. Burlington - the largest city in Vermont, at 45,000 inhabitants - has not … [Read more...]
Unexpected correlation in Census housing data
Since 1973, the US Census Bureau has administered the American Housing Survey (AHS) in odd-numbered years. Surveyors ask questions about the quality and value of respondents’ housing, and have a battery of questions for the subset of respondents who moved recently, asking about their search process. … [Read more...]
New Report: Georgia Not Quite an Unregulated Paradise
In a recent report from the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, Chris Denson and J. Thomas Perdue compile the strictest minimum lot size regulations and minimum home size regulations from a range of cities and counties in Georgia. 31 of Georgia’s 159 counties mandate minimum lot sizes (in … [Read more...]