I’m Mary Walden with economist MW welcoming you to the economic perspective. Today’s program looks at zoning wars. Mike, zoning has been a long-used technique to keep incompatible land uses separate in order to protect property values. But I understand residential zoning is being reviewed in many communities. Please give us an update.
- Focus is on zoning limited development to single family homes
- For example, many cities have R4 zoning, meaning there can be only four dwellings per acre
- Precludes multi-family units
- Now, some say such zoning contributes to high housing prices in fast growing cities
- They want to revise, or even eliminate, zoning that is only compatible to single family development
- Indeed, Minneapolis has outlawed this type of zoning
- Concern is what this may do to property values of existing houses
- The debate will continue
- I’m MW
And I’m Mary Walden for the Economic Perspective, an NC State Extension program from the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.