WASHINGTON, DC - HUD has released a report titled, "Zoning as a Barrier to Multifamily Housing Development." The study was conducted by the American Planning Association (APA) and contributes to HUD's Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing study series, which began in 1991. Exclusionary zoning has been identified as a consistent and pervasive barrier to the development of high-density multifamily housing, but there is very little empirical evidence to document this trend.
The purpose of the APA study is to document how communities use restrictive zoning policies to prevent the construction of multifamily housing, and to use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data to observe the impact of zoning practices on housing affordability in select metropolitan areas. The researchers collected data from six metropolitan areas: Boston, MA; Miami-Dade County; FL, Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN; Portland, OR; Sacramento, CA; and Washington, DC.
The study discovered that it is difficult to use GIS data to identify where zoning was a barrier to high-density or multifamily housing. However, the analysis of GIS and Census data did provide insights on inter- and intra-metropolitan zoning patterns. The statistical analysis in this report suggests a relationship between zoned capacity and housing production, and between higher-density zoning and multifamily housing production. This means that areas with more land zoned for residential development had more residential development, and areas with more land zoned for multifamily housing development had more multifamily housing development. The regulatory analysis shows that restrictive policies in some jurisdictions directly limit the amount of multifamily housing development, and these jurisdictions generally have higher incomes, higher housing prices, lower densities and fewer multifamily housing units than their neighbors.
The report points out that while there is evidence to support the idea that zoning barriers negatively affect the development of affordable housing, it is important to keep in mind that multifamily housing is not always inexpensive and single-family is not always expensive, so multifamily zoning is not the only solution to the affordable housing crisis.
Source: HUD