Allowing denser apartment buildings along Austin’s planned light-rail lines could slash the city’s affordable housing subsidies from $8 billion to $5.5 billion while meeting housing goals that current zoning makes impossible, according to a University of Texas study. The findings…
So Many Forms, So Few Homes: How L.A. Made Housing a Waiting Game
Los Angeles suffers from severe housing unaffordability, with one-third of renters spending over half their income on housing and over 47,000 residents experiencing homelessness. New research suggests that lengthy approval processes may be a key factor limiting housing production. Streamlining…
If You Tax the Things You Want Less of …
Los Angeles voters passed Measure ULA in 2022 to tax real estate sales over $5 million in order to fund subsidized housing programs. But new research from UCLA and RAND finds that the policy may be slowing the growth of…
How LA’s Transfer Tax Cost Schools and Local Governments $25 Million in Lost Revenue
New research reveals that Los Angeles Measure ULA, which imposes a 4% tax on property sales over $5M (5.5% above $10M) and allocates the revenue to affordable housing, has significantly reduced property transactions needed for housing development, undermining its own…
A Stronger Builders Remedy: AB 1893
AB 1893 makes the Builder’s Remedy a more effective tool for housing production by providing greater legal clarity and certainty for home builders who use it in localities that are out of compliance with state housing law. The bill moves…
We Can’t Build, and it’s Very, Very Bad: On the Politics of Urban Growth
Leaving aside the specific policy barriers to building—strict zoning, onerous permitting processes, environmental review laws that empower litigious neighbors, and so on— most jurisdictions and states across the United States struggle to build housing and infrastructure, and most policymakers fail…
The Tradeoffs of Inclusionary Zoning: A Closer Look
Inclusionary Zoning (IZ), the practice of requiring home builders to set aside some units in new housing construction to be rented at below-market rates (BMR) to low-income households, is a popular strategy to increase the production of affordable housing while…
Movin’ On Up: How Costly New Homes Create Affordable Old Homes
In housing policy, a common theory of how to provide the maximum number of affordable homes to the greatest number of people is known as “filtering:” the process through which aging homes depreciate, and become less costly as higher-income residents…
By-Right Approvals: The Better Part of Housing Valor
Most housing and commercial developments in California cities go through a series of reviews by various government bodies before they are approved for construction, or “entitled” – and those processes differ dramatically. In many cases, projects are approved “by right”…
Small is Beautiful … and Expensive: Removing Barriers to “Middle Housing” in California
When Senate Bill 9 passed in 2021, it represented a sea-change in California state housing policy. By allowing up to four units on all single-family zoned parcels statewide, SB 9 represented a significant step toward achieving housing abundance. But some…