The Most Bipartisan Climate Policy is Housing Policy
The average American spends 170% more time stuck in traffic today than in 1980, and a new report argues that this is because uncoordinated state and local zoning decisions have made car dependence the default, pushing people toward longer drives and away from transit, walking, and biking.
In Housing Policy That Solves Climate Change: The Policy Platform, a report from Climate Cabinet Education, a nonpartisan nonprofit that educates state legislators on climate policy, ranks 16 state housing reforms by their political feasibility and potential to reduce driving and the climate pollution it generates.
Key Takeaways:
- Highest climate impact: Transit-oriented development (TOD) scores a 10 out of 10 for pollution impact. An analysis of Washington’s 2025 TOD law estimates capacity for nearly one million new homes near light rail.
- Highest political accessibility: Eliminating parking minimums is a top-ranked reform the report rates as bipartisan, with data showing it boosts housing construction near transit by 71% on its own.
- Fastest implementation: Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) — secondary homes on existing residential lots — are likely the fastest-moving reform from bill passage to construction, with 14 states preempting local limits on ADUs in some capacity.
Climate Cabinet Education reviewed housing legislation across more than a dozen states from 2019 to 2025. The analysis draws on a 2024 study commissioned by the Colorado Energy Office that modeled how specific housing policies affect greenhouse gas emissions across the state’s largest counties, as well as interviews with state policymakers and a review of early-adopter outcomes. The authors acknowledge that most reforms are too new for confirmed emissions data to be available, so ratings reflect projected housing output and political feasibility rather than measured reductions.
Here are a few of the most salient reforms suggested by the report:
Transit-Oriented Development: Futurewise, a Washington State land-use advocacy organization, analyzed an earlier draft of Washington’s TOD legislation and estimated it would unlock roughly 1.6 billion square feet of new multifamily residential capacity, potentially approaching one million new homes located near existing transit. TOD ranks highest precisely because the policy forces housing where it reduces climate pollution most: every home built under these laws sits near existing transit, making car-free living more viable.
The report recommends legislators prioritize TOD laws that require higher density rather than merely incentivizing it. Massachusetts’ 2004 voluntary TOD law, offered as a cautionary contrast, produced only around 15,000 units in 14 years. Where transit is limited, mid-rise apartments in commercially zoned areas offer many of the same density benefits. However, the report notes that data are limited and rates that policy’s impact meaningfully lower than that of TOD.
Eliminating Parking Minimums: The report argues that parking mandates impose high costs on housing development, particularly in dense areas where high land values force parking spaces to be built underground or in structured garages. The Colorado Energy Office study estimates a potential 71% increase in housing construction near transit from eliminating parking minimums alone. Unlike TOD, which the report flags as partisan and difficult in many states, parking minimum reform has passed in both red and blue legislatures — Montana and Washington among them — because it frames the decision as a market choice rather than a government mandate, leaving developers to build as much parking as they judge necessary.
Facilitating ADUs. The report ranks ADUs as the fastest reform from passage to construction because, unlike TOD or other laws that instruct cities to rezone — a process that can take years before a single permit is issued — ADU policies grant homeowners a direct right to build, bypassing local government entirely. The trade-off is impact: the report is explicit that the effects of pollution are unclear, since a backyard unit in a car-dependent suburb may not change how its residents get around.
If the report’s projections hold, states reforming zoning around transit could generate climate pollution reductions that outlast other climate policies, such as technology-focused programs by decades, since compact communities persist long after vehicles and appliances are replaced.
Photo by Downtowngal, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
