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Contemporary research has documented a recent and widespread boom in the construction of “townhouses,” or land-efficient single-family houses, both detached and attached, in Houston. Contrary to popular portrayals of Houston as a Wild West of unrestricted land use, a deliberate reform in 1998 that was subsequently extended in 2013, in fact, made this townhouse boom possible. It drastically reduced permissible minimum lot sizes citywide. This article builds on this emerging body of literature to specifically focus on cases in which formerly single-family parcels were subdivided into small lots for townhouse construction between 2007 and 2020. It argues that Houston’s phenomenon of single-family-to-townhouse (SF2TH) redevelopment offers a glimpse of what other U.S. cities might expect to occur were they to repeal large lot single-family zoning and other binding restrictions to allow for widespread construction of widely desired small-lot single-family housing products in formerly low-density neighborhoods. The findings suggest that SF2TH redevelopment accounts for less than one-fifth of overall townhouse development, that it tends to take place on larger lots in the urban core occupied by small, old houses, that it produces relatively reasonably priced houses, and that it predominantly takes place in neighborhoods with higher-than-average house values prior to the period analyzed. The latter result is inconsistent with a view of gentrification as a primary driver of SF2TH redevelopment. This article also examines the pattern of “block votes,” or the pattern of usage of a petition mechanism that allows homeowners to opt out of townhouse development on their own blocks, and finds that clusters of block votes generally adjoin clusters of SF2TH redevelopment but with relatively little overlap.

This article examines California’s strengthened housing planning system as an example of land use reform impacts and intergovernmental conflict around housing policy. For the first time in its 50-year history, the state’s plan mandate set local government housing targets for the 2021-through-2029 planning period higher than many municipalities’ existing zoned capacity for new housing. Using administrative and census data, we describe changes in housing targets and changes in the housing plans cities have made in response. We analyze rezoning commitments in those plans, focusing on the 209 municipalities in southern California, especially the 93 housing plans deemed compliant by the state as of February 10, 2023. These municipalities, which represent less than one-third of the state’s population, have already committed to over 10 times the amount of rezoning than in the previous planning period (in 2014). Using regressions with different measures of targets and rezonings, we find that larger increases in a city’s housing target are associated with more rezoning and that increases in targets that require land zoned for multifamily housing have a stronger association. This assessment is important not only for the state’s 40 million residents but also for national discussions about state-level intervention in local housing planning. Existing evidence suggests that state affordable housing appeals systems have been more effective than plan mandates, yet mandates have not yet been aggressively implemented until now. We also assess the actions by presumably exclusionary cities: those with more expensive housing, non-Hispanic White residents, homeowners, and elderly residents than the rest of the region. The results confirm that these cities had received relatively low targets previously but do not differ in their rates of rezoning.

Across the United States, rising housing costs have increased the political pressure on local elected officials to encourage more housing production. Local and state governments are experimenting with changes to land use regulations that could allow more housing to be built through infill development. Between 2000 and 2020, Washington, D.C., engaged in substantial infill development, increasing the housing stock by about 15 percent. This article examines whether areas in the city with particularly high growth saw large zoning changes. The authors find that most housing development occurred where underused commercial or industrial land was repurposed into high-density residential uses. Some high-growth neighborhoods experienced rezoning; others saw conversions of existing structures with little zoning changes. Notably, high-growth areas initially had very little land zoned for single-family homes.

Many state and local governments are currently reforming zoning to increase housing production, especially of dense, small multifamily options (often known as missing middle housing). However, not all efforts to reform single-family zoning are new. For instance, the suburban town of Ramapo, New York, has continuously loosened development rules for nearly 4 decades, providing an unusually long timeline for a case study of zoning reform. This article uses quantitative and qualitative data to assess the impact of zoning reform in Ramapo. The case shows that the introduction of multifamily zoning—even in built-out suburban neighborhoods—can spur the large-scale production of new housing units. By contrast, laws that allow only for accessory units have more limited effects. The town’s experience also demonstrates the importance of infrastructural investment to serve new housing supply, especially when added in suburban areas. Finally, it shows that, at least in an unusually pro-growth political environment, discretionary review and parking requirements do not automatically hinder housing production.

The Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause constrains the government's ability to deprive any person of \"life, liberty, or property\" without adequate procedural safeguards, essentially \"some kind of hearing\" coupled with \"reasonably calculated\" notice. Last July, in Shoemaker v. City of Howell, the Sixth Circuit held that a municipality's failure to notify a homeowner of his ability to challenge a city-ordinance violation did not violate the Due Process Clause. The court found that repeated notices to the homeowner, which cited the relevant city ordinance and gave the phone number for City Hall, provided enough information for him to investigate his procedural remedies. For over fifty years, the City of Howell, Michigan (the City) has had an ordinance (the Ordinance) requiring any \"owner, lessee or occupant\" of land to maintain the grassy area between the sidewalk and the curb so as to prevent the \"growth of weeds, grass or other rank vegetation to a greater height than eight inches.\"

[...]we will turn to three cases this year in which landowners successfully argued that zoning regulations were too vague to quash their land use dreams. \"14 Similarly, a federal district court in Georgia analyzed a zoning ordinance only after laying out what it called the \"two central purposes\" of the void for vagueness doctrine: \"(1) to provide fair notice of prohibitions, so that individuals may steer clear of unlawful conduct; and (2) to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement of laws.\"92 For the definitions of \"active element\" and \"antenna array,\" the court was content, in theory, to look outside the terms of the zoning ordinance.

[...]planning was seen to be less essential to the future of a community and might be seen as superfluous or worthy of a lesser priority place in terms of state or local funding or effort. [...]communities may well have zoning, but no plan, or a plan that is not viewed as binding.