XPost: alt.politics.trump, alt.politics, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: austin.politics   
   From: hanoi-hilton-singers@johnkerry.com   
      
   In article <86udbgtcgr2n93rq23s8nd1krne33l38m0@4ax.com>   
   trumps bitch  wrote:   
   >   
   > ...I spent all night taking it up the ass.   
      
   The administration is encouraging counterproductive   
   "inclusionary zoning" policies that often raise housing prices   
   and reduce supply.   
      
   President Joe Biden has a new idea for reducing regulatory   
   barriers to new housing construction. Contained within the White   
   House's expansive new Housing Supply Action Plan is a proposal   
   to tie federal transportation grants to state and local   
   governments reforming their zoning codes.   
      
   Proponents of this approach argue that the massive amounts of   
   money that the feds spend on transportation give them a lot of   
   helpful leverage over the most overregulated jurisdictions.   
   Conditioning that money on the elimination of barriers to new   
   housing could get exclusive communities, or their respective   
   state governments, to start slashing red tape if they want   
   funding for new roads, bridges, or bike lanes.   
      
   But critics argue that even in its best form, getting   
   transportation bureaucrats into the weeds of local land use   
   policy is federal overreach.   
      
   The details released from the White House so far suggest that   
   they are not adopting the best form of this idea. In fact, Biden   
   could end up incentivizing counterproductive housing reform that   
   will probably raise costs and reduce supply.   
      
   The Biden administration's Housing Supply Action Plan, which was   
   released Monday, certainly sounds the right notes on zoning   
   reform when it says that "exclusionary land use and zoning   
   policies constrain land use, artificially inflate prices,   
   perpetuate historical patterns of segregation, keep workers in   
   lower productivity regions, and limit economic growth."   
      
   To fix the problem, it proposes a grab bag of policies; from   
   easing federal regulations on manufactured homes to streamlining   
   the applications for federal affordable housing funds.   
      
   Included is a plan to use discretionary transportation grant   
   programs funded by 2021's Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act   
   (IIJA)—costing $1.2 trillion—to encourage "locally driven land-   
   use reform, density, rural main street revitalization, and   
   transit-oriented development."   
      
   The IIJA provides $150 billion in funding for discretionary   
   grant programs. Beginning this year, the White House says that   
   the Department of Transportation (DOT) has released three   
   notices of available funding, totaling $6 billion in grants,   
   that have policies promoting "density and rural main street   
   revitalization."   
      
   Salim Furth, an economist at George Mason University's Mercatus   
   Center, says more closely tying local land use policy and   
   federal transportation spending is "broadly logical."   
      
   "You shouldn't build infrastructure where people ain't or where   
   [housing] densification can't follow the [transit] investment if   
   you're adding a lot of capacity," Furth tells Reason.   
      
   But he cautions that trying to incentivize land use reform   
   through discretionary grant programs—which give the   
   administration a lot of freedom to set grant conditions and pick   
   who ultimately gets the money—opens the door to a lot of   
   counterproductive political manipulation.   
      
   "When it's a Democratic administration, they are going to look   
   for Democratic-friendly policies, even when they don't have a   
   big impact on housing production," he says. "You might get   
   points for having a strong inclusionary zoning ordinance even if   
   that ends up backfiring and creating less housing than a Texas   
   suburb that is really generous about zoning for multifamily"   
   housing.   
      
   Inclusionary zoning refers to policies that require or   
   incentivize developers to offer some of the new units they build   
   at below-market rates to lower-income renters or buyers. Close   
   to a thousand jurisdictions in the country have some form of   
   inclusionary zoning.   
      
   The policy has a poor track record of creating new affordable   
   housing. Research is increasingly finding that requiring   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)