Housing Opportunities Unlimited Chief Operating Officer, Susan Connelly, joined Nixon Peabody LLP’s Housing Huddle and was interviewed by Strategic Policy Advisor/Deputy Practice Group Leader Deborah VanAmerongen about the Uniform Relocation Act (URA), and she also shared some insights on the recent URA changes.

Upzoning and reduced regulation are not magic bullets. Indeed, almost 20 years of data from across the country consistently shows that zoning reforms alone end up producing only a fraction of the new housing the country needs.  Restrictive zoning is correctly understood to cause higher housing costs and less construction.  But the opposite turns out not to be true; reduced regulation cannot on its own create enough housing to lower costs.

There is an almost invisible web of agencies regulating bits and pieces of the housing ecosystem. Their rulemaking is typically done with neither the authority nor the requirement to consider whether their policies promote, or hinder, available and affordable housing.