The latest fad being promoted by planners, politicians, and political activists is to eliminate the designated zoning known as single-family housing (SFH). The reasons vary as much as a city zoning map. SFH zoning is racist, exclusionary, elitist, restricts housing production, etc. At this point, one state, Oregon, has passed state legislation and one city, Minneapolis, has eliminated SFH from its zoning designations. In California, the state legislature and the cities Berkeley and Sacramento are pursuing ordinances. Advocates argue that eliminating the SFH is one way to increase housing production to address the “severe” housing shortage in California.
So why is this housing policy the latest fad? One, it is part of the political battle between state politicians and local politicians over “home rule”. Charter cities in California have the ability to regulate land use. They can pass laws more restrictive than state laws so long as they don’t violate the state constitution. Charter cities have taken full advantage of the home rule provision, adopting more restrictive regulations that make it more difficult and expensive to build housing. State politicians, most notably, Marc Weiner (CA-11th District) have tried to pass laws to loosen these local restrictions. As I have shared in my book, most of these state policies will be challenged in court as violating the home rule provision. Two, as I have discussed in my book, political activists have a better chance of advancing their agendas at the local level. At the local level, they can push their narrative that SFH zoning is racist, elitist, and exclusionary. Third, planners, while not necessarily socialists, believe they can still plan the perfect city. While they believe in regulating land uses, they see some restrictions as exclusionary and see some reforms as inclusionary. Planners realize increasing the production of new housing, increases property taxes which results in more city revenues.
The politics of housing regulation are interesting in terms of political ideology. On the one hand, many housing regulations restrict the supply of housing. As argued by Steven Greenhut (Reason, 1.20.2020), “leftists believe that the public good is “deliberately created” by government planning… markets can’t be trusted and only regulation can assure people’s preferences and lifestyles are respected.” On the other side, he argues that conservatives “believe in freedom and markets, "but" not in their neighborhoods.” In my experience on the city council, neighborhoods are classic NIMBYs regardless of their political affiliation. As I will argue below eliminating the SFH designation has the potential to allow homeowners to increase the potential use of their property, but will not lead to a significant increase in housing.
So what does it actually mean to eliminate SFH zoning? At this point, the City of Minneapolis is the only city to amend its housing ordinance. As noted in their Code of Ordinance, areas designated as R1 are now defined as a Multiple Family District. So far so good, but what does this mean to someone who lives in an R1 district. Unfortunately, the MFD designation does not eliminate a myriad of other regulations that will apply to a plot of land. Some of these regulations/restrictions are: structure setbacks on property lines, minimum lot size, minimum building/unit size (500 sq. ft. for units, 350 for ADUs (accessory dwelling units)), minimum widths of units, units must have an entrance facing the street with a 4 ft. wide pathway to the street, required windows, attached garages, restricted garage size (10%), the minimum percentage of open space and landscaped space on a lot, trees required per sq. ft., restrictions on the size of a building structure allowed on the lot, building heights, parking/driveway requirements, etc. Finally, there are subjective design features that a design committee or council might require in order for the structure to fit into the overall character of the neighborhood. All of these restrictions will make it difficult to figure out how a single-family unit homeowner could potentially increase the number of housing units on his property.
One last thing to consider is what type of housing will be added. Will it be ownership or rental housing? Adding ownership housing may require some purchasers to obtain mortgages, which can be more difficult to obtain with banking regulations.
While I like the option of increasing the number of housing units allowed on my property, for most property owners it will probably not be feasible. As I argued in my chapter on housing development, density restrictions only apply to the number of units, but housing lots are more likely constrained by all of the other restrictions that impact square footage. For lot sizes up to 5,000 sq. ft. it will be very difficult to add another separate housing unit. There are some cities that require a minimum lot size equal to one acre that could add more units, but I doubt these residents would support adding more housing units. While this latest housing fad may lead to many cities eliminating SFH zoning, I don’t see it as a significant way to increase housing. Like other ineffective local policies, it allows politicians to grandstand on how much they care about their residents, but in the end the policy will have little, if any, impact.
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