States Should Govern Zoning
Towns are stuck in a Tragedy of the Commons.
Housing production is stuck in a Tragedy of the Commons. A Tragedy of the Commons occurs when misaligned incentives cause the loss of a public resource. Example: the overgrazing of the Boston Common by cattle herds in the 1600s. Like over-grazing shepherds, over-regulating towns act against the public’s interest to their own benefit. Town housing policy, chiefly zoning, is accountable to local voters who are disproportionately homeowners. Homeowners are incentivized to block new homes because it props up their home’s value and avoids neighborhood-character change. Homeowners are behind only 65+ year-old voters in a Boston University study analyzing overrepresented groups in local elections. Over sixty five year-old homeowners are 14% of registered voters but make up 27% of voters in off-cycle elections, when local elections typically occur. That is a whopping 2x overrepresentation of retirement-age homeowners in local elections.
Certain town, like those on Cape Cod & the islands, have a greater portion of older homeowners than the young renter-heavy cities included in the Boston University study. As such, it should come at no surprise that Cape Cod & islands have among the worst housing crises in Massachusetts.
The current system is not working. The town–older homeowner–led housing production system is leading housing production on a one way street down. Without an electoral accountability change the housing crises will worsen. It is already showing signs of breaking with one in four young Bostonian’s planning to leave due to affordable housing. Communities without new generations cannot sustain themselves.
Fortunately, voters in state elections are more representative of the population. Relative to local elections, younger and renting voters turn out. For this reason states are the democratic (classical definition) choice to govern housing production. The federal government also has more a representative electorate than the local level, and should play a stronger role in housing production. Given state governments are more accountable to local needs, but don’t have the misrepresentation of towns, I tend to view them as the preferred housing policy authority.
In fact, states are starting to move. In January 2021, Massachusetts passed the MBTA Communities Act. This law requires towns to create multifamily-allowed zones within a half mile of MBTA (state public transportation) stops. These zones have a minimum density of fifteen dwellings per acre. This stands in stark contrast to low maximum densities, i.e. one dwelling per acre, in the standard town’s zoning code. Some town’s are freaking out, and others are embracing the moment. The state vs. town zoning fight escalated in February 2024 when Massachusetts’ attorney general sued the Town of Milton for MBTA Communities Act non-compliance. In parallel, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey's proposed Affordable Homes Act makes further progress on zoning control by allowing accessory dwelling units (ADUs) across the state, regardless of what town zoning says.
The dust is yet to settle on who is the authority of zoning. But if we want to solve housing’s Tragedy of the Commons, it should be the state.
I agree with the thrust of this blog, the more zoning decision-making can be divorced from local politics, the better. At the statewide level, politicians can see where the general interest lies. If zoning is to remain with small communities, then those communities should subsidize housing for young families, by levying a tax on house price increases, whether realized or not. To fail to do so is to permit those older voter power without responsibility, (the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages, to quote Rudyard Kipling)
Yes, thank you. Putting town voters in the position to get either higher property tax or rezone for more housing could work.
I read through thirty rural zoning bylaws from towns around Massachusetts yesterday. Three acre minimums and no secondary dwellings in some… needs to change.
Thankfully the state recently signed a law that should force all towns to allow secondary dwellings. States seem to be catching on.
We are stuck with anti-housing fiefdoms until more state or federal zoning policy is enacted. Towns would have solved the problem by now if their incentives were aligned.