Land Use and Zoning Regulation Constrain Housing Supply

There seems to be increasing emphasis within the city staff that something needs to done by the city to increase the affordability of housing in Georgetown.

The Council and city staff would be well served to read the following research paper before any further actions are taken.

Federal, state, and local governments seek to assist poor households financially using transfers, minimum wage laws, and subsidies for important goods and services. This “income-based” approach to alleviating poverty aims both to raise household incomes directly and to shift the cost of items, such as food, housing, or health care, to taxpayers. Most contemporary ideas to help the poor sit firmly within this paradigm.

 A “cost-based” approach would instead reform existing government interventions that raise living costs for the poor. Shelter, food, transport, and apparel and footwear alone account for 59 percent of spending by the average household in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution, and government policies raise prices in all those sectors. Local land-use and zoning regulations constrain housing supply, which raises housing costs and deters labor mobility.Cato