Do Single-Family Zoning Ordinances Still Work? II

Hello Everyone:

A lovely Tuesday afternoon to you.  Today we continue our series on how cities in the United States are upending zoning laws designed to safeguard the single-family home.  Yesterday we looked at Minneapolis, Minnesota, the first city to do away with single-family zoning ordinances to make neighborhoods more dense and compared it to other cities.  Doing away with single-family zoning ordinances is an acknowledgment that  we are becoming a more urbanized world and an effort to mitigate the housing affordability crisis.  The New York Times together with urbanfootprint.com mapped out the percentage of single-family residential land use in selected cities, measuring the affect of urban development and policy shifts.

New York City
15% of residential land is zoned for single family homes
nytimes.com

 The map on the left-hand side is New York City.  The areas in violet represent the amount of land set aside for single-family homes.  Fifteen percent of the land is designated for single-family homes (nytimes.com; June 18, 2019; date accessed July 9, 2019).

Despite Minneapolis' novel approach, some residents vociferously opposed changes to the zoning ordinances, and the city garnered 20,000 public comments (minneapolis2040.com; date accessed July 9, 2019).  Ultimately the City Council overwhelmingly voted in favor of it, 12-1 (startribune.com; Dec. 7, 2018; date accessed July 9, 2019).  If the regional council approves the changes, as expected sometime this year, duplexes and triplexes will be permitted citywide on former single-family lots.

Salim Furth, an economist at the Mercatus Center, told The Times, "The lesson Minneapolis,..., is that a single, sweeping edit to these maps may be politically easier than block-by-block tweaking" (nytimes.com; July 9, 2019).

According to UrbanFootprint, "Over, time, if just 5 percent of the largest single-family lots in Minneapolis--of at least 5,000 square feet--converted to triplexes, would create about 6,200 new units of housing,..." (Ibid).  Comparatively, "If 10 percent of similar sized lots in San Jose, Calif., added a second unit, the city would gain 15,000 new homes" (Ibid).

Mr. Furth said,

If you want to have the suburban American lifestyle, that will still be on offer,.... What we're really trying to change is that that has become so universal that there's not much space left for anything else (Ibid).

Charlotte, North Carolina
84% of residential land is set aside for single-family homes
nytimes.com

A moment of crisis

Although zoning remains undetectable to many people, the problems that they generate are increasingly not.  Taiwo Jaiyeoba, the planning director for Charlotte, North Carolina, said

Every community has to have a moment of crisis that eventually makes you pay attention to certain things,.... You knew they were there, but there was no impetus or motivation to address it" (Ibid)

In 2014, Charlotte experienced a crisis moment, when a national study (equality-of-opportunity.org; June 2014; date accessed July 9, 2019) ranked the region among the worst prospects for low-income children.  The requisite public meetings and task force reports followed in the wake of the shocking conclusion, focused on the city's racial and economic segregation (fftc.org; date accessed July 9, 2019).

One of causes of racial and economic segregation was the zoning ordinances that helped entrench those patterns in cities across the nation by separating different housing types so renters would be less inclined to live among homeowners, working-class families among affluent ones, minority children near high-quality schools (nytimes.com; June 18, 2019).

Taiwo Jaiyeoba was firm that Charlotte needed to change its zoning (charlotteobserver.org; Apr. 11, 2019; date accessed July 9, 2019) laws to be more equitable.  This was an abstract argument until Minneapolis took action.  Recently, Mr. Jaiyeoba invited Heather Worthington to present the idea in a public forum.  Right now, there is no formal proposal but he hopes civic officials will offer one.

The three of the current Democratic nomination candidates: Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro (issues.juliancastro.com; date accessed July 9, 2019) have offered remedies for racial inequality, including leveraging federal money to push cities into making changes to their zoning laws.

San Jose, California
94% of the land is designated for single family homes
nytimes.com

 San Jose California is the epicenter of Silicon Valley.  It is a lovely city with a fine university (shout out to San Jose State University) and very walkable downtown.  Like many West Coast cities, including Blogger's hometown, San Jose has a severe housing shortages and looming larger climate concerns.  Land set aside for single-family zoning leave a lot of land off-limits to housing units, forcing new supply into poorer, minority communities (oregonlive.com; Dec. 20, 2013, date accessed July 9, 2019) or onto undeveloped land on the outskirts of the city.

California State Senator Scott Wiener's bill, SB50, has been derailed by homeowners (latimes.com; May 22, 2019; date accessed July 9, 2019) and civic officials who object to state intrusion in their communities (city-journal.org; Apr. 26, 2019; date accessed July 9, 2019).  If signed into law, SB50 would allow greater density near transit and job centers.  It would also permit single-family home to be subdivided into as many as four units and multi-unit residents to be built on empty lots in areas zoned for single-family residences.  At the moment, SB50 has been put hold and may be taken up next year.

We will take up this subject again next week.  Tomorrow, Blogger Candidate Forum returns with a look the race to flip five in the United States Senate.  Until then, have a great evening.