Models of Affordability: Houston, Beyond Zoning

Houston is notable among comparable Sun Belt markets for the city's attainability of homeownership and low rent burden rates among households. Its rates of homelessness are also the lowest among major U.S. cities. But for those looking to Houston as an affordability model based on zoning's role in helping to keep housing costs relatively low—Houston is the only major U.S. city without use zoning—it's important to note that government intervention is still needed to provide housing to Houston's lowest-income residents.

One option is vouchers, according to Emily Hamilton on the website Market Urbanism. But Hamilton points out that providing locally administered aid for extremely-low-income residents not receiving federal Housing Choice Vouchers can become mired in local and state complexities. The result: many local policymakers focus on inclusionary zoning policies instead.

... I’ve studied inclusionary zoning in the Baltimore-Washington region, which has the country’s longest history with these mandates. I find that in this case, localities that have adopted mandatory inclusionary zoning programs have seen greater increases in their median house prices relative to what they could have expected without these programs.

Inclusionary zoning can provide large benefits for the few residents who win lotteries for the units that they produce. However, inclusionary zoning provides a very small number of units relative to the number of households that qualify for them based on their income. Further, as I find, these programs can actually make housing affordability worse for the households that don’t specifically benefit from them.

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