Divergence in Land Use Regulations and Property Rights / Christopher Serkin, in Southern California Law Review
"Zoning has long been seen as a kind of ex ante nuisance prevention. It separated incompatible uses of land before they arose, keeping factories out of residential neighborhoods during the urbanization and industrialization of the early twentieth century. And it protected single–family homes from more intensive uses, in effect stratifying much of the country into single-use zones. This had a pernicious underbelly, reinforcing divisions based on class and on race, keeping apartment buildings and other forms of multifamily housing out of more affluent single-family zones. Indeed, this is zoning’s original sin. But this is also the fundamental justification that the Supreme Court endorsed in Euclid.
Few people objected to the idea of using regulations to separate genuinely incompatible land uses. Indeed, the regulatory goal of minimizing externalities was consonant with both liberal and conservative convictions. But zoning’s contours have been contested now for a long time. By and large, conservatives objected to regulatory restrictions on property rights and so have advocated for limited zoning that separates only the most conflicting uses. Others on the right have advocated for even more extreme regulatory minimalism, relying on private land use controls instead of zoning and invoking covenants and homeowners’ associations as remedies for regulatory overreach. Liberals, on the other hand, embraced zoning. They were willing to take a more capacious view of the harms of neighboring uses and so promoted increasingly fine-grained land use regulations... Today, the underlying goals of many land use regulations have nothing to do with ex ante nuisance controls...
Although not always noticed, even by local officials and developers let alone by courts and scholars, the presumptive conservative opposition to land use regulations and liberal support has, in many cases, flipped...
Advocates for sustainable development clash with NIMBYs (“Not in My Backyard”) and BANANAs (“Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything”) and are joined by California’s new YIMBYs (“Yes in My Backyard”)...
People concerned with preserving the existing in-place community will usually object to development that changes the character of a place...
Just as some people seek growth for the amenities it brings, others may object because of increasing congestion or changes in municipal character that can accompany substantial new development. It can also come simply from status quo bias.
Again, whatever the specific motivation, the anti-growth agenda embraces zoning and land use regulations of all kinds. The clearest regulatory strategy to preserve the status quo is to erect as many regulatory hurdles as possible to prevent new development. Strict zoning requirements, including designating large areas of a municipality as effectively off-limits for development, are the most obvious techniques. But adding new layers of regulation can be equally if not more effective. One study has demonstrated that every new regulation reduces building permits for multifamily units by 6%. Historic preservation rules, strict subdivision ordinances, development impact fees, and so forth can also create an atmosphere hostile to development that drives growth elsewhere...
While normatively controversial, local governments often seek to exclude affordable housing because low-income households generate relatively little revenue and yet place significant burdens on municipal budgets through impacts on schools and other municipal services. On the flip side, local governments seek land uses that generate substantial tax revenue while creating few costs. Depending on the nature of the tax base, this often means seeking to attract high-valued homes for people with few if any school-aged children...
Simply increasing the supply of any form of new housing can also put downward pressure on price... The most extreme example is the YIMBY movement in California, which pushed for a change in 2018 that would have all but eliminated density limits on residential development anywhere near mass transit. This would have unlocked an enormous amount of development potential throughout California’s cities. The measure failed, but there can be no doubt that affordability is motivating increasing political pressure...
In 2019, Professor Vicki Been et al. surveyed the economic literature and concluded that unlocking supply, even without explicit inclusionary zoning requirements, helps make housing more affordable, whereas supply restrictions drive prices up...
Zoning can be used to exclude disfavored groups or businesses. This is most obvious and familiar in the context of racially motivated zoning. Although explicitly race-based zoning is clearly unconstitutional and illegal, exclusionary zoning often has a racially discriminatory impact, if not motivation. Because this can be so difficult to detect and to prove, it remains widespread. For example, opposition to affordable housing or simply to less expensive multifamily housing may well be motivated for some people by racial animus...
Multiplicity in land use regulations can allow people to better satisfy their individual preferences by choosing to live in a place that pursues their particular regulatory priorities. And they will not always choose to live in the place where their property rights are the most expansive. Indeed, it is quite to the contrary. While no one likes to be told what they can and cannot do on their own property, almost everyone likes being able to tell neighbors what they can do on theirs. Many people will willingly trade greater restrictions on their own land for equivalent restrictions on their neighbors. The proliferation of common interest communities, many of which are subject to much more burdensome property restrictions than any local zoning ordinance would ever impose, is proof that many people prefer this trade–off. Just as people can choose to live in a place with good public schools, or low taxes, or mass transit, or lots of open space, regulatory priorities can be important selection criteria for homeowners...
[For Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee] the City also sees a substantial fiscal upside. Not only does new development generate more property tax revenue, but also its net fiscal impact is even more positive. Where dense urban infill has occurred nearby, the net tax revenue per square foot is dramatically higher than anywhere else in the metro area because of the relatively low cost of building out infrastructure and the high property values...
Consider, first, the effect on traffic: a central source of opposition. This is a perplexing reason to oppose redevelopment. Music Row is adjacent to Vanderbilt and in the heart of the City. Yes, new residential buildings will increase local traffic to some extent, but it should marginally reduce traffic in the City more broadly. It is not exactly transit-oriented development since there is no meaningful transit in Nashville. But it is development that is closer to the places people work and play and so will result in fewer vehicle miles traveled. Traffic has a lot of political valence, and it makes tactical sense for opponents to use it as a reason to push back against development, but it seems misguided as a basis for objecting new buildings on Music Row. For this same reason, those concerned with sustainable development should favor dense infill in places like Music Row over suburban sprawl. This also reduces development’s total carbon footprint.
Increased housing costs citywide are also a poor reason to oppose the redevelopment of Music Row. While new housing may well precipitate a change in the character of the particular neighborhood and increase prices there, the best evidence demonstrates that adding supply will decrease median property values in the City and increase affordability. This is true even if the new housing stock is exclusively market rate and expensive. Such is the power of supply and demand"
Related:
San Francisco's Housing Activists Are Making the City More Expensive - The Atlantic (also headlined: "San Francisco's Self-Defeating Housing Activists")
Why Middle-Class Americans Can't Afford to Live in Liberal Cities - The Atlantic
Addendum: "according to Trulia chief economist Jed Kolko... “Even after adjusting for differences of income, liberal markets tend to have higher income inequality and worse affordability”... There is a deep literature tying liberal residents to illiberal housing policies that create affordability crunches for the middle class. In 2010, UCLA economist Matthew Kahn published a study of California cities, which found that liberal metros issued fewer new housing permits. The correlation held over time: As California cities became more liberal, he said, they built fewer homes."
""Democratic, high-tax metropolitan areas... tend to constrain new development more," Saiz concluded, and "historic areas seem to be more regulated." He also found that cities with high home values tend to have more restrictive development policies."
Do liberal cities limit new housing development? Evidence from California
"Traditional explanations for why some communities block new housing construction focus on incumbent home owner incentives to block entry. Local resident political ideology may also influence community permitting decisions. This paper uses city level panel data across California metropolitan areas from 2000 to 2008 to document that liberal cities grant fewer new housing permits than observationally similar cities located within the same metropolitan area. Cities experiencing a growth in their liberal voter share have a lower new housing permit growth rate."
Liberals and Housing: A Study in Ambivalence
"Do political liberals support or oppose zoning changes that allow more market-rate development? I use survey data from California and show that liberals are ambivalent. The ambivalence is explained in part by homeownership, which is associated with opposition to new housing of all kinds, even as it has little influence on attitudes about other policies. Even controlling for ownership, however, I find that self-identified liberals remain ambivalent about new development, never supporting it as much as they support more stereotypically liberal policies, and opposing it outright when reminded that enabling new housing might require less regulation, particularly environmental regulation. In contrast, liberals strongly and consistently support spending on subsidized affordable housing. The results together suggest that in supply-constrained cities with liberal electorates, the political calculus is unfavorable to new housing. Ownership injects some conservatism into development politics; liberal ideology could provide a counterweight to that conservatism, but that counterweight might be blunted if development also requires deregulation."
From what I see, liberals still support zoning (to prevent both densification and new development) - they just blame foreigners, speculators, landlords and big business for unaffordable housing, and pretend that supply isn't a factor.
Yet, higher density results in more tax revenue, which can be used for the public services that liberals love.
For sure, the environmentalist opposition to new development is coming from liberals.
Ironically, environmentalists and the NIMBY anti development lobby are literally conservative - they don't want things to change or even look back to a prelapsarian ideal.
The same people who want low density housing everywhere also oppose new development, block everything due to supposed environmental impacts, demand good public transport/public transit - and then complain about high housing prices. And they are for rent control too. And they will call anyone who points out that immigration boosts housing prices racist.
Addendum: Refined to: The same people who only want low density housing everywhere because they hate condos and oppose any intensification also oppose opening new land to development, blocking everything due to supposed environmental impacts (despite intensification leading to a lower average environmental impact) or because we can't afford to lose farmland (as if we must grow as much food as possible nearby), while blocking housing renewal because that will displace existing residents, as well as demanding good public transport/public transit (even as they refuse to allow lines to run under their homes or have maintenance and storage facilities in their neighbourhoods) - and then complain about high housing prices. And they are for rent control too even though that reduces the incentive to build new housing. And they will call anyone who points out that immigration boosts housing prices racist - even as they call for foreign buyers to be kicked out, even though foreign buyers make up a small portion of the market.
Keywords: the same people who demand public transit
I've also seen comments by some people that others don't have to live in their communities (i.e. the ones they oppose development in). I've asked where people should live instead, but haven't gotten an answer.