Is upzoning the answer to housing affordability?
It seems so logical. Build more housing units in cities such as San Diego by building tall buildings - like the Turquoise Tower in PB. More housing supply means lower prices, right? After all, that has been a basic tenant of YIMBY-based advocacy for decades. Then, because the increased supply of housing will lower prices, more Hispanics and Blacks will have the chance to become homeowners. And yet …
Study after study shows the reverse is true. Upzoning ups prices, lowers opportunities.
“Upzoning accelerates the process of gentrification, and the upward pressure on mortgage payments and rents this brings has been found to drive Black and Latinx residents out, not draw them in.”
Cities where upzoning has upped prices;
and one where non-Whites fear being displaced
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Vancouver
Since the 1970s, Vancouver has tripled its total number of housing units, adding more housing than any major city in N. America. Yet, Vancouver’s housing prices are the highest in N. America.
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Bloomington, IN
Densification advocates said upzoning would bring greater diversity for Bloomington. However, upzoning has been found to displace lower income tenants in upzoned areas.
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New York
Research on upzoning effects in New York City between 2000-2010 finds that upzoning activity is positively and significantly associated with the odds of a census tract becoming whiter.
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Chicago
Upzoning in Chicago neighborhoods in 2013 and 2015 brought “an increase in property values in upzoned areas” and an increase in the cost of living in upzoned neighborhoods.
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Los Angeles
Facing rent increases of 50%, LA residents also fear single-family homes that housed middle-class residents, many of them Black, will disappear from their rebuilt neighborhoods.
A tale of two cities: Views from Vancouver, Bloomington
University of British Columbia professor Patrick Condon’s Broken City: Land Speculation, Inequality and Urban Crisis argues that unfettered speculation, fueled by global wealth looking for asset investments, has driven Vancouver land costs up so high they erase savings that can be delivered by building many units on a parcel instead of a few.
➤ “The common expectation is that this problem (housing prices increasing with upzoning) is solved if you just add new density onto expensive land in the hope of diluting the land price component. But if you just rezone for more density, you find that the main beneficiary of the upzoning is not the renter or owner, but the land speculator. And that the final rental or ownership cost of the new units is no lower, and most often even higher, than the housing units nearby.”
➤ “We are now in the habit of thinking if housing prices are too high it must be a problem of restrictive zoning, or construction costs, or taxes. It’s not. It’s a problem of our gradual return to the norm where land absorbs too much value uselessly, and unrelentingly, into the value of urban land.”
➤ “Wealth inequality and late capitalism” is the culprit. … “Trickle-down housing is no more likely to work now than did the trickle-down economics of the 1980s. … The complaint that housing is unaffordable because NIMBYs block new development is demonstrably false.”
Russell Skiba, Ph.D. is a Professor and Director of the Equity Project at Indiana University. Skiba examined Bloomington’s Unified Development Ordinance, which promised that upzoning in core neighborhoods would bring “equitable access to housing” and growth in the city’s affordable housing supply.
➤ “Densification advocates claim that their objectives include greater diversity in Bloomington’s neighborhoods. However, upzoning has not been found to improve equity for people of color and lower income residents, but rather to displace lower income tenants in upzoned areas.”
➤ “Far from increasing equity and affordability, upzoning appears to favor upper-income residents and creates racial displacement; so it isn’t surprising that it has proven tremendously unpopular among those it purportedly helps.”
➤ “Nowhere are the divisions caused by upzoning proposals more bitter than in Austin, Texas, where the community has been battling proposed upzoning for years. In the latest chapter of the struggle, thousands of residents have sent individual protests to the City, in order to slow down or halt the rezoning; in response, the Austin City Council is spending $121,000 to hire an attorney to argue that property owners do not have the right to protest comprehensive zoning plans.”
What people are saying about upzoning
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“To blame local democracy for our affordability problems is a tragic mistake."
Patrick Condon
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"Nobody approaches me and says, ‘I’m excited by this project (upzoned Turquoise Tower); I hope it ... gets built.'"
Joe LaCava, SD City Council President
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"Property values in upzoned areas increased almost immediately after the approval of the new zoning."
Russell Skiba, IU Equity Director
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“There is insufficient evidence that upzoning can improve housing affordability."
Michael Storper, UCLA
Our view:
Look at the quotes on this page. The common thread is protest beginning to emerge against failed, but mandated, housing policies forced on citizens. In California, these seeds of protest are sprouting from the extreme overreach of state officials. Sacramento politicians have made “void” long-cherished citizen initiatives like Prop D. They have relegated to insignificance the voice of community planning groups and even cities. The result has been protests because of the inevitable “unintended consequences” of state mandates that silence the voice of the people.
Citizens need to have
a voice in housing
Housing is so complex that no one has all the answers. Neighbors for a Better California (NFABC) doesn’t. Neither do politicians in Sacramento.
But one thing is clear about solving California's housing problems:
Taking rights away is never the right way.
You won’t find balanced housing solutions if you exclude from the decision-making process the citizens living in the neighborhoods where development is proposed.
Instead of solutions, you will find desperate citizens protesting in the streets or gathering in hastily called meetings in community halls. We’ve seen these scenes of protest repeated all too often in recent months in Pacific Beach, Pt. Loma, Oceanside, Hillcrest, Encanto … the list goes on across the state.
Unprecedented opposition from voters
Look closely at what San Diego City Council President Joe LaCava says:
“This (opposition to the extreme upzoning proposal of a 23-story tower on Turquoise Street in Pacific Beach) has been the one singular issue that has united constituents from La Jolla to Pacific Beach in a way that is certainly unprecedented in my first four years in office,” LaCava told the La Jolla Light. “Nobody approaches me and says, ‘I’m excited by this project; I hope it actually gets built as proposed.’ The reaction by constituents is uniform across the board.”
No one likes this project, so why does it keep hanging around like a guillotine poised above Pacific Beach?
Not affordable, not helping equity
Look closely at the quotes from housing experts about how upzoning not only reduces the chances of non-White, less wealthy populations to build wealth through home ownership, but in many cases is driving them out of their long-held neighborhood homes because the cost of home ownership keeps increasing.
NFABC argues that we need more housing, but we need to plan for it in a responsible way. As Mayor Todd Gloria and LaCava have repeatedly said, San Diego is building more housing and looking at innovative ways to make more of that housing affordable. Gloria, a housing advocate to his bones, says his city already is doing its part to add housing. He’s right.
But when the City of San Diego cannot, because of state law, quickly reject a badly flawed 23-story hotel/luxury condo complex proposed under the guise of providing affordable housing, something is clearly wrong.
In an attempt to correct decades of inadequate building and bad housing decisions by some communities, Sacramento has tipped the scales to an extreme position that favors developers and excludes citizens. The scales need to be balanced. The solutions need to be less extreme.
Here’s why home ownership for non-Whites is so critical
Ownership wealth
Ownership rates
Previous Special Reports
Does Prop D really need to be discarded? See the history of the citizens crusade that 53 years ago saved the coastal communities of San Diego from “unbridled coastal development.” Now, the state says the will of the voters as expressed in California’s Direct Democracy is “void.” Yet nearly 91 percent of citizens surveyed say Prop D should be honored. See the Prop D Special Report.