Building Housing for All

Tarsi Dunlop

An $85 million Biden administration grant appropriation is designed to encourage cities to “identify and remove barriers to affordable housing production and preservation, and lower housing costs”. The funds are being distributed to 21 US communities to increase local housing supply by dismantling zoning restrictions, abolishing parking-spot minimums, renovating inadequate infrastructure, and eliminating outdated land use policies, among other measures. 

In a recent GMF report, “Breaking Barriers to Affordable and Abundant Housing”, Yonah Freemark highlights these and other obstacles that publicly led projects, those in which public entities play a key role in driving development but do not administer it or directly fund it, have encountered. The report is the culmination of an 18-month transatlantic exchange program for city officials to address such topics.

Interviews with program participants and other urban planning staff and practitioners revealed six major barriers to publicly led housing projects in the United States:

  • zoning and building constraints that limit housing investment
  • difficulties in attracting investment to some neighborhoods and gentrification in others
  • challenges to aligning investments in housing and transportation
  • resident opposition to new construction
  • short-term political horizons and devolved public administration
  • inconsistencies in local and federal policy

Some cities receiving the federal monies have already begun to overcome these challenges. Philadelphia is working to increase housing production by expediting and increasing flexibility in the development process. Officials in that city are also planning a market feasibility study to improve mixed-income development. Los Angeles County is looking to upgrade its housing-related infrastructure, update plans for denser development near public transport stations (transit-oriented development) and improve land-use policies. Milwaukee intends to update local code to facilitate the construction of types of housing beyond single-family homes, better utilize city-owned public lots, expand the capacity of local developers, and provide development subsidies for more affordable housing for households with less than 80% of the local median income.

These and other municipalities might also consider additional tactics to break down barriers to more housing production, including:

  • buying or using public land and leverage it for higher levels of affordability
  • establishing a new public entity, perhaps a government nonprofit, tasked with financing and developing mixed-income housing
  • conducting planning across municipal agencies to integrate transit and housing investments
  • engaging with residents from the start of planning to ensure that land-use plans reflect neighborhood priorities

Annual surveys of US (and European) mayors and city managers show that one of their top priorities is creating sufficient affordable housing stock. Implementing every strategy available and applicable to them, such as those above, would bring them closer to their goal.