15
Jul

How Stringent Design Regulations Restrict Housing Affordability and Choice

Housing affordability has long been at the forefront of housing policy and attention. It’s been even further ignited by the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on employment and people’s ability to afford somewhere to live.

Recent land use trends — such as form-based codes (FBCs), planned unit development (PUD) and traditional neighborhood development (TND) overlay zones — provide additional development methods to make the residential development and regulation process more efficient. However, some localities are moving in the opposite direction by enacting burdensome residential design standards that go well past good design principles, and into regulation that increases costs, limits consumer options, prices out certain populations and raises a number of legal concerns.

NAHB’s Residential Design Standards: How Stringent Regulations Restrict Affordability and Choice report addresses this issue. Included in the primer are examples of communities across the country that have attempted to implement these types of standards.

Click Here for more information from NAHB, including a link to the 2020 report that details how housing attainability has been negatively impacted by municipal design regulations that restrict buyer choice and drive up the cost of construction, as well as examples of how associations such as Texas Association of Builders, with the support of Dallas BA and other local HBAs, have taken action to find the proper balance.