Publications Tagged ‘land use’
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Working Paper
Community Benefits Agreements: A New Local Government Tool or Another Variation on the Exactions Theme? PDF
Community benefits agreements (CBAs) are the latest in a long line of tools neighbors have used to protect their neighborhood from the burdens of development, and to try to secure benefits from the proposed development. This Article canvasses the benefits and drawbacks various stakeholders perceive CBAs to offer or to threaten, and reviews the legal and policy questions CBAs present. It recommends that local governments avoid the use of CBAs in land use approval processes unless the CBAs are negotiated through processes designed to ensure the transparency of the negotiations, the representativeness and accountability of the negotiators, and the legality and enforceability of the CBAs’ terms.
Vicki Been. April 2010.
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Policy Brief
How Have Recent Rezonings Affected the City’s Ability to Grow? PDF
How Have Recent Rezonings Affected the City’s Ability to Grow? is the first comprehensive statistical analysis of the City’s rezoning strategy. The report examines the net impact of the 76 rezonings initiated by the City between 2003 and 2007. It finds that, of the 188,000 rezoned lots citywide, 86% were rezoned to reduce or limit new development through either a downzoning or a contextual-only rezoning. Nevertheless, the 14% of lots that were upzoned resulted in a net gain of 100 million square feet of new capacity citywide. The report explores the likelihood that this new capacity will be developed for residential use, and examines the characteristics of neighborhoods that gained new capacity and of those that lost capacity.
Amy Armstrong, Vicki Been, Josiah Madar, Simon McDonnell. March 2010.
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Working Paper
Minimum Parking Requirements: Transit Proximity and Development in New York City PDF
New York City policymakers are planning for a city of over 9 million residents by 2030, a large increase from today. A central goal of City officials is to accommodate this increase while simultaneously improving the City’s overall environmental performance, addressing externalities arising from traffic congestion and providing increased access to affordable housing. The requirement in the City’s zoning code that new residential construction be accompanied by a minimum number of off-street parking spaces, however, may conflict with this goal. Critics argue that parking requirements bundle the cost of unnecessary new parking with new housing, not only increasing the cost of housing, but also reducing the density at which it can be built. Facilitating car ownership by requiring parking may also lead to increases in auto-related externalities. In this research, we combine a theoretical discussion of parking requirements in New York City with a quantitative analysis of how they relate to transit and development opportunity. Using lot-level data and GIS we estimate two measures of the parking requirement for each lot and at a City, borough and neighborhood level. Our results indicate that the per unit parking requirement is, on average, lower in areas near rail transit stations, consistent with the City’s development goals. However, we also find that the required number of spaces per square foot of land area is higher, on average, in these areas. This raises interesting questions about the role of parking requirements in determining the use of scarce land resources in transit-rich neighborhoods.
Simon McDonnell, Josiah Madar, Vicki Been. November 2009.
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Working Paper
Underused Lots in New York City PDF
Despite a robust real estate market for most of this decade, researchers and policymakers have observed that many areas of New York City have remained built out well below their zoning capacity. This study aims to contribute to our understanding of urban redevelopment by compiling and analyzing a large database of underdeveloped lots in the City. We identify about 200,000 such lots as of 2003 that were built out at less than 50% of their zoning capacity, representing about a quarter of all residentially zoned lots. Of these, about 8% were redeveloped during the subsequent four years. Our preliminary analysis reveals that underdeveloped lots are primarily made up of low density 1-4 family houses and are disproportionately located in poor and minority neighborhoods. We plan to use this analysis as the foundation for further analysis to assess whether market failures and regulatory and other barriers impede desirable development in mature cities.
Vicki Been, Josiah Madar, Simon McDonnell. November 2009.
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Article
No Renters in My Suburban Backyard: Land Use Regulation and Rental Housing LINK
Academics and policymakers have argued that the ability of low- and moderate-income families to move into desirable suburban areas is constrained by the high cost of housing. Local zoning and other forms of land use regulation are believed to contribute to increased housing prices by reducing supply and increasing the size of new housing. Suburban restrictions on rental housing are particularly likely to reduce mobility for low-income families. In this paper, I employ an instrumental variables approach to examine the effects of zoning on the quantity and price of rental housing in Massachusetts, using historical municipal characteristics to instrument for current regulations. Results suggest that communities with more restrictive zoning issue significantly fewer building permits for multifamily housing but provide only weak evidence of the effects of regulations on rents. The lack of effects on rents may reflect the low level of multifamily development, while analysis is complicated by development of subsidized housing under the state’s affordable housing law.
Schuetz, Jenny. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. March 2009.
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Policy Brief
The Effects of Inclusionary Zoning on Local Housing Markets PDF
This study evaluates the impact of Inclusionary Zoning policies on housing markets in the San Francisco, Washington D.C. and suburban Boston areas. The analysis provides local decision-makers with valuable evidence on the impacts of IZ—a popular but often-controversial affordable housing policy. The policy brief includes an update from February 2010, summarizing additional research that has been completed since the original publication in March, 2008.
Amy Armstrong, Vicki Been, Rachel Meltzer, Jenny Schuetz. March 2008.
affordable housing, housing prices, inclusionary zoning, land use
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Working Paper
No Renters in My Suburban Backyard: Land Use Regulation and the Rental Housing Market in MA PDF
For several decades, academics and policymakers have argued that the ability of low- and moderate-income families to move into desirable suburban areas is constrained by the high cost of housing in those areas. Local zoning ordinances and other forms of land use regulation are believed to contribute to increased housing prices by reducing supply and increasing the size and quality of new housing. Restrictions on rental housing in particular are likely to reduce prospects of mobility for low- and moderate-income families. In this paper, I employ an instrumental variables approach to examine the effects of regulations on the quantity and price of rental housing in Massachusetts, using historical municipal characteristics to instrument for current regulations. Results suggest that communities with less restrictive zoning issue significantly more building permits for multifamily housing but do not have significantly lower rents. The lack of differences in rents across communities may reflect spillover effects and regional supply constraints. The analysis of rents may also be confounded by the thinness of the rental market and development of subsidized housing under the state’s affordable housing law.
Schuetz, Jenny. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. June 2007.
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Working Paper
The Effect of Community Gardens on Neighboring Property Values PDF
Cities across the United States that have considerable vacant land are debating whether to foster community gardens on that land, while cities with land shortages are debating when to replace gardens with other uses. Meanwhile, many cities are looking for new ways to finance green spaces. Little empirical evidence about the neighborhood impacts of community gardens is available, however, to inform the debate or to help cities design financing schemes. This paper estimates the impact of community gardens on neighborhood property values, using rich data for New York City and a difference-in-difference specification of a hedonic regression model. We find that gardens have significant positive effects, especially in the poorest neighborhoods. Higher quality gardens have the greatest positive impact.
Been, Vicki and Ioan Voicu. Real Estate Economics, Vol. 36, Issue 2, (Summer 2008). June 2007.
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Book
Land Use Controls: Cases and Materials (Third Edition) LINK
A thematic framework that reveals the connections among the multiple discrete topics under land law, with attention to the factual and political context of the cases and the aftermath of decisions
Ellickson, Robert and Vicki L. Been. (Aspen Publishers). September 2005.
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Working Paper
Removing Regulatory Barriers: One City’s Experience PDF
The difficulty of developing housing in New York City is as legendary as its cost. The city has had a vacancy rate under 5% — the legislative threshold defining a housing “emergency”—for more than 55 years. More than one commission or blue ribbon panel has identified government regulation as one of the primary causes of the housing problem. Since 2000, however, an opportunity presented itself to finally make some progress in reducing the cost of housing construction. Removing regulatory barriers to housing development caught the interest of two mayors—Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg—and their respective housing commissioners.
Schill, Michael H. September 2005.
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Article
Comment on ‘The Effects of Affordable and Multifamily Housing on Market Values of Nearby Homes LINK
Advocates of growth management and smart growth often propose policies that raise housing prices, thereby making housing less affordable to many households trying to buy or rent homes. Such policies include urban growth boundaries, zoning restrictions on multi-family housing, utility district lines, building permit caps, and even construction moratoria. Does this mean there is an inherent conflict between growth management and smart growth on the one hand, and creating more affordable housing on the other? Or can growth management and smart growth promote policies that help increase the supply of affordable housing?
Ingrid Gould Ellen. Growth Management and Affordable Housing: Do They Conflict? . December 2004.
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Chapter
Will International Agreements Trump Local Environmental Law? LINK
This is a very recent movement, but one that has proceeded far enough to demonstrate the powerful role that local governments can play in the nation`s efforts to protect natural resources and to maintain environmental quality. The advent of local environmental law challenges practitioners and academics to describe this new field and explain its relationship to traditional concepts of environmental and land use law.
Been, Vicki. New Ground: The Advent of Local Environmental Law (Island Press). February 2003.
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Chapter
Regulatory Barriers to Housing Development in the United States LINK
Nothing provides as much material for comparative legal study as the great variety of rule-making that characterizes land law. Land law is perhaps the only legal area in which the leveling march of globalized uniformity has had to yield to the progressive development of local customary law.
Schill, Michael H., Ingrid Gould Ellen, Amy Ellen Schwartz, and Ioan Voicu. Land Law in Comparative Perspective (Aspen Publishers). September 2002.
affordable housing, housing prices, land use, neighborhoods, subsidized housing
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Article
NAFTA’s Investment Protections and the Division of Authority for Land Use and Environmental Controls LINK
My claim in this Article is a narrow one. I take no stand here on whether the “takings” provisions in NAFTA and other investor protection or free trade agreements are, on balance, wealth-maximizing, or desirable from some other normative perspective. Nor do I take a position on whether the existing allocation of authority for land use and environmental regulation among federal, state, and local governments is optimal. Instead, my goal is to highlight the consequences [32 ELR 11002] investor protection provisions could have for that allocation, and thereby seek to ensure that those consequences are taken into account in discussions about the wisdom of including such protections in bilateral and multilateral free trade or investment agreements.
Been, Vicki. Environmental Law Reporter. December 2001.
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Article
Spatial Inequality and the Distribution of Industrial Toxic Releases: Evidence From the 1990 TRI LINK
This research investigates environmental justice activists’ claims that pollution is unevenly distributed across communities in the United States. We examine three possible explanations for environmental inequity: racial discrimination, economic stratification, and urban ecology.
Daniels, Glynis and Samantha Friedman. Social Science Quarterly, 80 (2). March 1999.
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Article
The Outlook for the Metropolitan Area PDF
Much of the discourse about regional and local economic development strategies in the United States over the past twenty-five years has looked like a search for general rules. Very few such rules have emerged, in part because—like all policy debates—there have been large inputs of ideology and self-interest, as well as professional inquiry, but in part because the appropriate strategies really are time- and place-specific.
Netzer, Dick. Economic Policy Review of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 3(1), pp. 93-111. February 1997.