There’s already been one lawsuit tied up in the courts challenging Pittsburgh’s thus far limited, but no less damaging, foray into “inclusionary zoning.” Now, with city leaders ready to make the oddly antithetical public policy that will lead to the exact opposite of its intentions a city-wide affair, a local attorney is blowing the whistle on the whole affair.
As the Post-Gazette reported it last week:
“A prominent Pittsburgh attorney is ripping a proposal by Mayor Ed Gainey to expand an affordable housing mandate to all corners of the city, claiming that it is not only illegal but would cripple development.
“In a letter to city Planning Commission Chairwoman LaShawn Burton-Faulk, Jonathan Kamin argued that the proposed ‘inclusionary zoning’ amendment violates the city’s Home Rule Charter and the U.S. and state constitutions, including the latter’s uniformity clause.
“’As the proposed IZ ordinance requires a limited class of residential developers to provide housing on behalf of the city, or in lieu of the city doing so or paying for the same through its revenues, the proposed IZ ordinance amounts to a targeted, non-uniform tax disguised as zoning amendments,’ he wrote.”
Again, it’s not the first time the foul whistle has been blown on inclusionary zoning in Pittsburgh, ostensibly in the guise of “affordable housing.” A more than year-old federal lawsuit filed by the Builders Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh (BAMP) in U.S. District Court remains pending.
BAMP, a nonprofit trade association representing builders and developers, not only argues the city ordinance allows for unconstitutional taking of property but also is a violation of Pennsylvania’s Home Rule and Optional Plan law.
As others have before him, Kamin also reminds that national studies and Pittsburgh’s limited experience – in four city neighborhoods — thus far suggests that expanding inclusionary zoning citywide won’t significantly increase the number of affordable units.
“Rather, it would chill new development throughout the city, and exacerbate an already critical housing affordability problem,” he told the P-G, adding that no one has examined the financial impacts associated with expanding the mandate citywide.
But there is ample evidence that it simply doesn’t do what it claims, as this scrivener noted in an At Large column last October and before.
From that column:
As Emily Hamilton, senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, concluded in a 2019 white paper:
“Inclusionary zoning, a policy intended to address the problem of households struggling to afford housing, may actually increase house prices generally.”
In fact, no studies of “inclusionary zoning’s” effects indicate that such policies increase housing supply or contribute to broadly lower prices, the Ph.D. economist notes. “It benefits a small portion of low- and moderate-income households rather than targeting aid at the households that need it most.”
Furthermore, the urban economics and land-use policy scholar finds that serious improvement to housing affordability requires substantial land-use policy reform that will allow significantly more housing construction, including low-cost housing types.
“Under land use-policy that allows new housing to be built in response to increasing demand, inclusionary zoning would be a clear tax on construction because density bonuses wouldn’t provide an offset to developers,” Hamilton adds.
“Even under vastly liberalized housing policy, some households will struggle to afford shelter. But taxing housing construction with the goal of creating more abundant housing for people of relatively low-income levels doesn’t make sense,” she argues.
“Rather than using inclusionary zoning to appear as if they’re pursuing housing affordability, policymakers who are actually concerned about affordability should reform exclusionary zoning and provide targeted support to those households that need it.”
Pittsburgh’s existing, limited “inclusionary zoning” mandate is a proven dog that won’t hunt. Repeating the mistake on a citywide scale will only make the economic fallout worse.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org)
