Essay On Inclusionary Zoning

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Inclusionary zoning (IZ) is an affordable housing development program, which encourages the production of affordable housing and controls the housing prices. IZ policies in San Francisco, Boston, and Washington D.C support new residential developments to keep a certain percentage of the housing units affordable and serve to low income residents. Density bonuses are allowed to the developer to build more units, and fast-track permitting allows developers to expedite the building process. Although those programs have aided numerous residents, there is the argument followed, IZ program would cause the prices of market-rate housing to rise ultimately reducing rather than increasing affordability. To find out the truth of the IZ program, the research team in Furman Center, New York University addresses these questions.
1. How much affordable housing has been produced in different inclusionary zoning programs, and what factors have influenced production levels?

2. What effects has inclusionary zoning had on the price and production of market-rate housing?

The IZ programs are likely to take several years to be effective and support low to moderate-income residents. Developers and administrators need some time to be well informed to the new program. The Furman Center research team finds that the programs in San Francisco region exempt smaller projects or provide density bonuses tend to produce more units, indicating that more flexible programs may result in greater production. In the Washington D.C area, IZ programs have produced a total of 15,252 affordable units (as of 2003). In San Francisco area, IZ programs have produced 9,154 affordable units (as of 2004), and the programs with density bonuses and exemptions for smaller projects...

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...ncome housing can force a community to reveal whether its exclusionary zoning regulations are serious or merely symbolic. Forcing a community to price its own Exclusionary Zoning Tax avoids having to estimate the effect that exclusionary zoning regulations have on other communities. More importantly, forcing a community to pay the amount of its own bid in taxes if the developer does not match the bid will force the community to reveal exactly how much it is willing to pay to exclude low-income housing. A community does not want to bid more than it is willing to pay to exclude low-income housing because if the developer does not match the community’s bid, the community must pay the equal amount of its own bid in taxes. This kind of self-assessed tax has proven remarkably effective in terms of flexibility in each community with the different demographic compositions.

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