HOW ZONING SHAPES COMMUNITIES

THE GOOD, BAD AND HOPEFUL ASPECTS 

OF THE CENTURY-OLD TOOL THAT DETERMINES

EVERYTHING ABOUT THE PLACES WE LIVE, WORK AND PLAY

Yonah Freemark, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute said that he favors upzoning near public transit, so affordable housing is created in proximity to mobility.

If the goal is to make life more affordable for the city’s workforce, that can be achieved by placing housing by transit so people can get to work without the high expense of owning and maintaining a car.

Freemark also believes cities, counties, schools and other agencies are sitting on an asset that could be tapped for housing.

“I think maximizing the use of publicly owned land is the number one most important thing we can add to the toolbox to promote affordable housing. 

We must identify what sites are owned by the public sector across various agencies, then maximize those sites to get more housing starts,” he said. 

“There is a lot of under-used public land that could be built on for zero cost of acquisition.

We can then invest in a publicly owned housing developer to produce mixed-income housing units.”