Over the weekend I saw a couple of stories that epitomized for me the challenges of addressing housing affordability in our quite conservative state.
Now I need to say, I highlight these stories not because it’s like driving by a car crash and you just can’t help but stare at it. It’s more about pointing out that such a seismic shift in an established institution like land use regulation, to succeed, is best accomplished by concerted collaborative effort. Here are a couple of exhibits why.
A story in the Bangor Daily News (Maine) https://bangordailynews.com/2021/12/05/politics/maines-aggressive-housing-policy-push-runs-into-history-of-strong-local-control/ describes that state’s machinations in addressing housing affordability that sounds very similar to our own. The state legislature there set up a state-level commission to come up with proposals, which are essentially a compilation of what has been tried or talked about in other states.
“A draft report released Thursday by a legislative housing commission proposed a range of solutions, including eliminating single-family zoning and annual caps on home construction, allowing homeowners to add accessory units like in-law apartments and allowing up to four units to be built in lots now zoned for one. It wants to steer aid to municipalities with housing-friendly policies and consider a state board that could overturn local development decisions.”
Gotta love that last one, which prompted the completely expected reaction from local governments:
“Kate Dufour, a lobbyist for the Maine Municipal Association and a commission member, supported most of the recommendations, but the association is against changes eroding the authority of member cities and towns, including eliminating growth caps and the state-level appeals board. Dufour hoped those items were struck from the eventual package and that the state offers municipalities help reaching the goals that it outlines, since local officials are going to be charged with “keeping the peace” once state policy trickles down to outcomes.”
And when that collaboration doesn’t happen – well, as I pointed out in an earlier post showing how creative people can be when they look for ways to get around rules they don’t like, there was a really crazy example from Atlanta in a story in Bloomberg CityLab https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-11-22/buckhead-fights-atlanta-s-multifamily-housing-push?srnd=citylab
“Residents of the area collectively known as Buckhead in northern Atlanta are trying to ward off new proposals working their way through city planning channels that would allow for more multifamily housing, and many of them are willing to create a new city to prevent this from happening.”
Apparently the legal climate in Georgia allows for new cities to be created from neighborhoods in existing cities, and the residents of the Buckhead area are working to do just that to avoid measures being contemplated by the Atlanta city council to address housing affordability and racial disparity.
Collaboration, people, that’s what it takes, by all involved.