Community Interaction and Suburban Zoning Policies

Abstract

Focusing on multifamily land use, this note discusses the hypothesis that zoning policies in a community are related to the zoning policies of surrounding communities. A community may restrict certain types of land use to preserve its neighborhood quality. As a result surrounding communities may adopt similar policies to prevent an influx that would reduce neighborhood quality. Empirically, a model is formulated to test whether the amount of multifamily development in a community is related to the amount of multifamily land use in surrounding communities. Other variables control for the effects of market forces, fiscal factors, and other effects. The empirical results are consistent with the hypothesis.

An Index to Characterize the Multi-Dimensional Nature of Land Use Regulations in the Greater Houston Metropolitan Area

“…These correlation results validate the appropriateness of indexes as measures in characterizing LUREs for housing markets (Baldassare, Protash 1982, Bates, Santerre 1994, Burnell, Burnell 1989, Donovan, Neiman 1992, Gyourko et al 2008.…”

The effect of land use regulation on housing and land prices

“…However, the validity of the index used here is suggested by the results presented in Table 3. The correlation coefficients reported in the table indicate that R is higher in those communities that have been found in prior studies to be more restrictive; namely, those that are wealthier, with higher proportions of whites and homeowners (Baldassare and Protash [1], Burnell and Burnell [8], Donovan and Neiman [12], Bates and Sonterre [2]). Additional evidence validating R comes from a regression for the year 2000 of the jurisdiction's planning expenditures on R, population, and the percentage change in population (1990 to 2000).…”

“…The counties without digitized maps tended to be both small and rural. 8 In addition to the county tax rolls and parcel maps, other sources of data include the 2000 Census, which is used for the neighborhood variables and some of the jurisdictional level controls, and the Florida Department of Financial Services, who provided millage rates and per capita public service expenditures for each local jurisdiction for the year of the house sale (i.e., 2000, 2001, or 2002). 9 The test variable (i.e., the measure of land use regulation restrictiveness, R) and two of the jurisdictional control variables-the chief planner's perception of school crowding and the jurisdiction's form of government-come from a questionnaire that the chief planner of each local jurisdiction responded to in 2001.…”

“…This limitation was not necessary for residential vacant land sales. 8 These maps were provided by the Florida Department of Revenue, which has a policy requiring each county to develop a map. Not all counties have satisfied the requirement.…”

Zoning and fiscal interdependencies

“…These studies identify fiscal, externality, and exclusionary motives for zoning, but do not fully model the interdependency of fiscal and zoning decisions that exists between neighboring towns. The issue of zoning interdependence is addressed by Burnell and Burnell (1989), but the empirical analysis lacks theoretical underpinnings and consequently may be subject to specification error. Lenon (1989) develops and tests a model of the representative household's demand for zoning, but does not include an optimizing public sector and, therefore, has no mechanism to handle the simultaneous nature of zoning and fiscal decisions within a town, or the zoning and fiscal interdependencies between towns.…”