The Case for a ‘Zoning Czar’

“Balancing America’s lopsided housing markets — where wealthy neighborhoods block new housing while poorer places shoulder churn and displacement — means rethinking the codes that allowed these patterns to take hold. To accomplish this, the White House is looking to see if it has more leverage with city and county governments than it found with congressional lawmakers,” writes Kriston Capps in Bloomberg CityLab. 

But with the current structure of the government, local leaders looking to reform zoning in their towns don’t have a centralized federal office to go to for resources. The solution? “The White House just might need a zoning czar.”

According to Capps, “Solving exclusionary zoning will require nimble, silo-busting thinking from across agencies devoted to housing, transportation, financing, veterans, rural and tribal communities and even the environment.” Capps acknowledges that “Since the federal government has no authority over local zoning codes, its tools are limited to carrots or sticks to encourage cities and counties to adopt reforms.” As such, “A federal zoning office could be a body like the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which was established (by statute) in 1987 to coordinate efforts to address homelessness across some 19 different federal agencies.”

Capps continues, “While exclusionary zoning must be understood as a racial justice concern, it is also a matter of regulatory burdens that limit business, growth and freedom of opportunity. A zoning czar could frame it both ways.” And “Perhaps more importantly, such an office could start to attack the political problems associated with zoning reform.”