New Report: Hyperlocal Zoning Can Clear the Way for Housing Growth

New York, NY — Policymakers, mayors, and advocates who want more housing are often frustrated by political obstacles, but a new Manhattan Institute (MI) report by John Myers of YIMBY Alliance details a tactic to overcome them: granting small groups of residents the option to upzone their own areas.

In the report, part of MI’s 2021 Urban Policy Series, Myers outlines how local governments can empower residents to increase the amount of building allowed under local zoning rules—via a “street vote” of residents of a single street segment, or a “block vote” of residents on a single city block. A related idea in Houston recently helped solve the politics of growth by allowing blocks and streets of owners to opt out of new minimum lot changes.

Myers’s proposal considers the many areas across the U.S. with high potential growth but where there has been little new housing development of late. Street and block votes, the report notes, should prove a popular means of increasing development in lower-density areas with high housing costs, while respecting existing rights and without disrupting existing successful processes for upzoning.

Residents understandably fight change when they think that it puts their home or community at risk. Proponents of density often push for the state or even the federal government to impose it. But this strategy has resulted in only limited additional construction, and a large body of evidence suggests that bottom-up tactics could have more success. Votes by street or by block would give residents a way to negotiate to share the benefits of new development and ensure that such development will suit them. 

Myers’s paper is a reminder that new housing need not be at odds with the interests of local stakeholders. As cities in the U.S. and beyond consider how they will adapt to a post-pandemic world, leaders should consider hyperlocal zoning as a politically feasible way to permit much-needed growth. “Street votes and block votes can be a popular new way to allow substantial infill growth,” Myers writes, “and restart the type of organic growth that created many beautiful historic places over time.”

Click here to read the full report.

About MI’s Urban Policy Series

Since 2014, the Urban Policy Series has brought together experts from around the country to shape the future of urban America. From housing to transportation and regulation to urban planning, we have developed nationally relevant policy solutions grounded in unique local experiences. The 2021 Urban Policy Series will feature innovative proposals to overcome onerous obstacles that stand in the way of housing and small-business development.