Law Commons^™

Housing Impact Assessments: Opening New Doors For State Housing Regulation While Localism Persists, Tim Iglesias

Tim Iglesias

America’s housing crisis is serious, pervasive and chronic. It burdens people of color and low-income households most severely, but is now recognized to hinder millions of moderate-income households and full-time workers in mainstream occupations. Past and current housing policies have not solved our chronic housing crisis. This article seeks to open up states’ housing policy to new possibilities through the application of a regulatory regime that helped turn around America’s environmental policies.

The fundamental problem underlying our housing crisis is the failure of local governments to consistently integrate housing concerns into the full range of land use policies and decisions …

Managing Local Opposition To Affordable Housing: A New Approach To Nimby, Tim Iglesias

Tim Iglesias

The development of affordable housing and services for low and moderate income households has been plagued by “local opposition” (commonly referred to as the not-in-my-back-yard or “NIMBY” syndrome) for decades. Many affordable housing developers view local opposition is the most important barrier to development after insufficient subsidy. A hardening of racial and economic attitudes and increasing opposition to growth and development of all kinds suggest that local opposition is likely to remain and even get worse. Based upon the experience of two successful multi-year regional projects to confront local opposition in the San Francisco Bay Area, this article proposes a …