Two NCSL experts on housing and transportation join the podcast to discuss state efforts to promote transit-oriented development and why states have become so involved in housing legislation, an area long left to cities and counties.
Housing historically has been a local issue that was handled by cities and counties. The rising crisis of housing cost and availability, however, has brought more attention from state governments. States have enacted more than 700 laws in 2022 and 2023 related to housing.
The focus of this podcast is the nexus of housing and transportation, and particularly transit-oriented development. We sat down with Cameron Rifkin, a policy expert at NCSL who tracks housing legislation, and Doug Shinkle, who heads NCSL’s transportation program, to discuss housing, transportation and the efforts by state legislators to take on challenges in both those areas.
They discussed the types of legislation passed, how some states have passed legislation directly addressing transit-oriented development and why parking requirements for housing developments are sparking conflict.
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Ed: Hello and welcome to “Our American States,” a podcast from the National Conference of State Legislatures. I’m your host, Ed Smith.
CR: We are seeing a very large increase in housing bills in recent years. According to NCSL’s tracking in 2022 there were 244 enacted bills from 33 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and the Virgin Islands. And in 2023, that number went up to 488 enacted bills across 44 states, the District of Columbia and Guam.
Ed: That was Cameron Rifkin, a policy expert at NCSL who tracks housing legislation. He is my guest on the podcast along with Doug Shinkle, who heads NCSL’s transportation program. They joined the show to discuss the nexus of housing and transportation and why state legislators have become so focused on the issue in the past few years.
Housing historically has been a local issue that was handled by cities and counties. The rising crisis in housing costs and availability; however, has brought more attention from state governments. The combined costs of transportation and housing has a significant impact on family finances. One particular area of focus is transportation-oriented development that seeks to increase the availability and affordability of housing in areas that provide retail and transit within walking distance.
Cameron discussed the sharp increase in state housing legislation. More than 700 laws enacted in the 22 and 2023 legislative sessions and why this increased activity makes it critical for states to work with other jurisdictions on the problem. Doug explained how some states even enacted laws specifically to encourage transit-oriented development and why parking requirements for having developments has sparked disagreements in many communities.
Here is our discussion.
Cameron, Doug, welcome to the podcast.
CR: Thank you. Thank you, Ed. It’s a pleasure to be here.
DS: Thank you very much, Ed.
Ed: First, thanks to both of you guys for coming on this show. We are going to discuss the ongoing housing and transportation needs that communities across the country are in need of and are often facing challenges being able to fulfill those and I wonder Cameron if you could start a little bit by telling the listeners about how states are involved in housing policy. I think most of us for many years thought this was sort of a local issue that states and not even the federal government really got involved in.
CR: Thanks Ed. Yeah. Housing has historically been a local issue often left to cities and counties. However, as housing becomes less affordable to more people, states are increasingly grappling with the crisis and searching for solutions. Often it was federal funds flowing down to local agencies, local governments, non-profit agencies, continuums of care on the county level, but as housing supply has become a bigger issue, state legislators have become more involved particularly in the last five to 10. Certainly, more so over the last 3 years particularly after covid. So, at the core, housing is just a basic need and an economic issue for everyone and states are realizing the need for more support and more funding and just bigger mechanisms to address needs across states rather than tailoring it specifically for local and county governments.
Ed: Well, that’s a good framing of the basic situation. Thanks for that. Where are states now with housing policy then. I’ve read something about land policy efforts in different states including here in Colorado. I wonder what kind of legislative trends you are seeing.
CR: We are seeing a very large increase in housing bills in recent years. According to NCSL’s tracking, in 2022, there were 244 enacted bills from 33 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and the Virgin Islands. And in 2023, that number went up to 488 enacted bills across 44 states, the District of Columbia and Guam. So more than ever, states are exploring a variety of ways to address housing concerns. This includes reducing zoning barriers including like touch density, increasing duplexes and triplexes and incentivizing the new construction and renovating current housing stock and building commercial spaces into housing. Increasing home ownership opportunities. Creating more climate resistant housing and improving landlord/tenant relations. Two creative innovative bills from this session alone Washington HB 1892 enacted the workforce housing accelerator program which provides loans to eligible organizations to finance affordable housing for low-income households. As well, Kentucky HB 256 created the strengthening Kentucky homes program and fund for the purpose of providing financial grants to real property owners, building contractors and non-profit organizations to assist and promote the mitigation of insurable dwellings to resist lawsuits due to catastrophic wind and hail events. So, we are seeing quite a mix from red states, blue states, purple states across the political spectrum. Housing is becoming more of a state issue at the state policy level.
Ed: Doug, you and I have had a lot of conversations over quite a number of years about transportation and housing. I’ve learned a lot from you in those conversations and I wonder maybe if you could tell the listeners a little bit about that. And specifically, what is the connection between transportation and housing cost for people?
DS: Housing and transportation are certainly interrelated. When you think about the decisions a household makes in terms of where they are going to live. Oftentimes, they are thinking about only the housing costs, the rents or their mortgage payment or what have you involved, but households are maybe paying less attention to the associated transportation costs that are associated with the different decisions they make. Now housing costs can be offset to a certain degree by reducing commuting costs if a person is able to spend less or nothing on a car and its associated cost such as insurance, gas, maintenance, etc. There is an interesting organization based out of Chicago called the Center for Neighborhood Technology and they have this combined metric that they have been using for at least 20 years called the H+T Affordability Index, the housing plus transportation affordability index. Rather than using the traditional affordability benchmark, which is no more than 30% of household income is supposed to be devoted to housing, the H+T benchmark is at no more than 45% as devoted to housing plus transportation costs. And when you look at it through that lens, it can sometimes change the decisions that make sense for a household, but also the types of housing and transportation options that a state or a local community might want to incentivize. Basically, it boils down to this. People who live in compact, mixed-use neighborhoods with convenient access to jobs, services, transit, amenities, bars, restaurants, etc. you know healthcare, tend to have lower transportation costs. People who live in less dense areas that require automobiles for most trips are more likely to have higher transportation costs and that’s really where that big interrelation comes in.
Ed: Yeah, I think it’s such an interesting topic growing up watching the explosion of the suburbs in this country, the way that people would trade off square footage basically for distance in their commute both on the East Coast where I grew up and in California, I think is very interesting and this sounds like policymakers are finally getting around to looking at that and thinking if maybe there could be some options for people. Now let me ask you, what sort of trends are you seeing in state transportation legislation and specifically how it intersects with housing?
CR: Yeah, a great question. I think a key thing that you pointed to there, Ed, is the idea of options or choice and we will get into that a little bit. It is not suggesting that everyone is going to live in kind of denser housing, but that’s an option for some people and some people actually want to choose that and that we maybe underbuilding that in the United States. Specifically, what we are seeing in the legislatures is a lot of renewed interest in transit-oriented development or TOD is what I’ll call it for short. TOD is not a new concept. In fact, as you said Ed, really many of our larger cities in our older kind of communities built up as were built as transit-oriented communities with high frequency streetcar lines and things like that. But over time, that has kind of atrophied in some areas, but what we’ve seen especially in the last 20 years is kind of a renaissance of more transit line theme built and what have you and with that states and local communities and metro regions are all looking to see how they can kind of capitalize on these transit lines and make sure these transit lines have ridership and making sure that there is just some easily available housing next to these transit stops. So, community is defined as housing and commercial built within about typically a half mile of a transit stop. Typically rail transit. It can also be applied to a high frequency bus line as well. Maryland has defined transit-oriented development as a place of relative higher density that includes a mix of residential employment, shopping and civic uses designed to encourage multi mobile access to the station area. Transit oriented development typically also is meant to be walkable meaning that you are able to walk around your immediate area, but also access that transit station fairly easily and with that of course, that means that you need kind of the appropriate and safe pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure to allow people to make those last mile trips after they get off transit. And that may include things like shuttles, other transit services and what have you. And really what we are seeing is that there have been historical levels of federal investment in inner-city and intracity rail via the infrastructure investment in jobs act that was passed back in 2021. And states, regions and cities are very eager to try and capitalize on those investments because this is like a once in a lifetime investment in rail infrastructure and they want to make sure they provide the largest bang for the buck and one way you can do that is establishing housing near transit to create more frequent ridership. And the last point I would make is that policymakers are certainly not expecting everyone to live in such kinds of housing developments, but it is important to point out that housing developers are interested in building more housing and there is a market for this sort of housing. I found an interesting analysis by Minnesota’s Twin Cities Metropolitan Council which is basically the planning organization for the 7 county Twin Cities Metro Region and they found out between 2009 and 2022, more than 16 billion dollars in development occurred within a half mile of the high frequency bus and rail transit in the region. And that accounted for 30% of all development in the Twin Cities metro region so that really kind of demonstrates that there is kind of market and interest on the developer side and on the folks actually wanting to rent or supply these homes.
Ed: Well, I think that makes a lot of sense when you think historically. I know you guys know this, but I’m not sure if people fully appreciate how much cities and regions are shaped by transportation. You think just about the city of Denver. The development of street cars in the late 19th century completely altered the way that Denver developed. Cameron, anything you would add to what Doug said about TOD and this nexus of the two.
TM: 12:13
CR: Yeah, I think Doug did a great job summarizing this and making it clear that housing and transportation are obviously interconnected and they can impact the availability and affordability of housing options and they have broad economic impacts to individuals, families and the greater community. Ultimately this is an economic mobility issue. Affordable accessible housing and transportation improve access to employment and improve access to food, healthcare, all these necessary resources. A few things to just kind of add to what Doug said, he mentioned you know the attractability of transit-oriented development. A few studies have shown that these type of housing options which ah you probably heard me mention earlier light touch density tends to refer to duplexes, triplexes, cottage courts so not huge buildings. Not huge apartment complexes. Denser certainly multifamily properties but townhomes and accessory dwelling units. These types of housing options are attractive to both younger generations interested in walkability, bike friendly infrastructure, proximity to commerce as well as older generations. In the United States, we have population that is getting older and folks want to age in place and remain independent and stay in their homes. These types of properties provide those opportunities. Doug mentioned it really is about choice. It’s creating opportunities, different housing options, different housing varieties, types of properties for folks across all ages, across all workplace’s workforce development stages. An important thing to note is there are zoning barriers that often prevent these types of properties so when we talk about transport and development in these cities and states who have bolstered these types of properties, they’ve ultimately addressed zoning issues. Zoning barriers that prevent multi-family properties, prevents ultimately anything other than a single-family home from being built. And so, building these types of properties specifically near transit lines, it helps commerce. It reduces costs, housing, transportation and really increases the economic viability for folks.
TM: 14:16
Ed: When we dive down into the policies, Doug, what kind of requirements are being included in these state TOD laws?
DS: Yeah, a great question Ed. Housing is really a linchpin of these states TOD statutes. Most TOD state statutes reference a mix of housing as essential to TOD and many state laws include some sort of affordability threshold or percentage for TOD housing. Some states such as California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota and there’s more provide funding to help plan or build TOD affordable housing or provide tax incentives or provide expedited permitting or a combination of all of those. All of those are of course very attractive to developers. States like Utah are incentivizing the construction of new multi-family housing near public transit and that’s stuff you are seeing a lot of attention on at the local and regional level. But you are also seeing states involved in making sure okay we have high quality transit stops and how do we make sure that we kind of activate those more so it’s not just like an empty lot with a parking lot which is really just not capitalizing on a transit station kind of to the best degree you could.
An example of some of the requirement that states kind of have is in Massachusetts is a good example more of a transit heavy state obviously, but they’ve had some of these in place for a while, but the TOD there through the state law is typically required to commit at least 20% of their units to affordable housing, workforce housing or a combination of the two. Affordable housing is about 60% of the applicable area median income while workforce housing serves households earning up to 100% of area median income. And then we’ve seen and I know Cameron has some examples to point to as well, but we’ve seen a lot of attention paid to this in the last couple of years especially this legislative session. And we’ve seen states as diverse as Colorado, New Jersey and Utah enact laws to in some way encourage housing near transit or transit corridors.
Ed: Thanks, Doug. We will be right back after this short break with the rest of our discussion.
TM: 16:35
So, it sounds from what you are describing that it is really important for state and local governments to work together on this. I’d like to hear from both of you on this. Is that what’s playing out in the states? Is that what you guys are seeing? Doug, why don’t you go first.
DS: Yeah, and I think frankly that’s perhaps the trickiest part of this equation. Housing affordability and availability and then things like transportation mobility and congestion issues are regional by nature. In a locally driven effort, just simply does not always adequately address these problems and in some instances local control can kind of exacerbate these issues. There is tension between state and local governments at times and we’ve seen that play out in some of the bills just this legislative session. In a few instances, that did appear to lead to some changes or perhaps a bill just not getting enacted at all. But it’s important to remember that dispersed housing development can have negative impacts on housing and transportation affordability as well as mobility and congestion while TOD can help reduce congestion, increase choices for citizens and also help achieve associated policy goals like improve the air quality and better workforce access to jobs. So, I do think it really is a delicate dance because there has been a tradition of deferring to local governments when it comes to developmental decisions made within their jurisdiction, but that states have felt that they needed to step in and be a little bit more assertive in making sure that the needs of the region, a region or a states are kind of met and included in that kind of thought process.
Ed: I think it is difficult for people to give up power that they have traditionally had. I think I see that across all levels of government. Cameron, what’s your take on this?
CR: Yeah absolutely. Thank you both. Yeah, there is an ongoing push and pull. I alluded to it before. Historically these decisions have been left up to cities, counties, local jurisdictions and now as the states become more involved, there’s tension as Doug mentioned. It depends on the rules of the state dealing rule, home rule, but often states have broad authority to require municipalities to develop affordable housing plans or change their zoning requirements. This idea of state preemption is difficult and challenging for both state policymakers and local policymakers, city council you know mayors, county boards. Zoning laws, as mentioned, are often determined at the local level so when states decide that they want to alter those, it can ruffle some feathers. But simultaneously as we mentioned you know this is a growing issue and states can create broad overarching policies that permit, enable, support or even prohibit certain types of development. They weigh the balance between a carrot and a stick method if you will be incentivizing versus sort of requiring. Mandates are one strategy versus you know incentives for building affordable housing. So just to highlight quickly, two examples. Colorado just this year passed the local government’s property tax credits program, which authorizes counties and municipalities to offer limited property tax credits or rebates to incentivize affordable housing. Massachusetts also provides bonds to provide for housing community development and economic opportunities that support local governments and increase innovation and job creation. So, it is states working collaborating with local governments. As Doug mentioned, a delicate dance, but a very vital and necessary one to address these very big issues.
TM: 21:46
Ed: So, it seems what we’ve been talking about so far is kind of urban, city oriented and I have to admit that when I think about this issue over the years, I’ve always thought of it that way. Is that right or is there also something in the exurbs and more rural communities that we also want to think about in this context?
CR: I think you are right. I think we have focused a little bit on urban communities. That’s where a lot of the transit-oriented development is. It is a lot of where the transit lines are. You both mentioned historically it’s kind of how these urban centers were built was based around transit so these are things that have been in place for quite some time. It is catching up to more rural communities. As urban communities build what we have been calling transit-oriented development, there’s kind of another term in more rural areas called commerce-oriented development so they might not have the transit lines in place, but building housing specifically on these main streets in commerce centers where people work, buy all of their goods. It is just as important and we mentioned that this is really ultimately an economic mobility issue so even if you don’t have the transit infrastructure, it’s a little bit of a chicken and an egg which comes first. But in these rural areas where those might be costly projects, building the housing where these commerce and business centers already are achieves similar goals as transit-oriented development. And specifically, I’d like to highlight Montana who recently enacted a very comprehensive land use planning act. I will say that it is currently in the courts in Montana, but ultimately what it does is offer a menu to local jurisdictions for affordable housing to select from. So, it is not quite a requirement, but it is a menu of housing initiatives that include permitting more density, legalizing accessory dwelling units, reducing parking minimums. In these more rural states, more rural communities, there are still strategies to address housing and transportation. Just a quick tidbit in Boise, Montana, I think the median household is upwards of $600,000. It’s not just the biggest cities you can think of Seattle, San Francisco, New York, LA, Phoenix, Houston. There are these more rural areas or more dense areas in rural states that are addressing these issues just as well.
Ed: Now we talked a little bit about zoning earlier in our conversation and I’ve read you know a lot of stories about this issue around the country and I can’t tell you how many times parking comes up. People feel very strongly about parking. I am amazed sometimes how strongly they feel. Cameron, how big of a factor are these parking requirements in new developments. It takes a lot of space.
CR: Sure. Sure yeah. That’s a great question. It takes a lot of space. It takes a lot of costs. It adds to the permitting process. Generally, developers do not like parking requirements. And just quickly, parking requirements basically say in order to build a certain amount of housing units, you have to have a certain amount of parking spaces along with it. The thing that comes along with that is that structured parking can cost $25,000 to $65,000 per individual space. This adds quite a bit of cost to a developer. It adds to the footprint of the development without actually adding housing units so it drastically can reduce profitability for a developer by simply just requiring that a building come with parking.
So as this intersects with transportation, building near transit reduces the need for cars and therefore parking. It’s a symbiotic relationship you know beaning into transit-oriented development can help increase biking, walkability and reduce kind of this car centric development that we see sprouting up. Specifically, again to just highlight a few. Florida recently introduced legislation. It is currently pending, but it would require counties to reduce parking requirements for all proposed affordable housing developments within a half a mile of a transportation hub. That distance that Doug mentioned earlier. And Utah enacted their transit and reinvestment zone act a few years ago. They’ve amended it several times since then. And just as recent as last year, they updated it to improve parking efficiencies, increased walkability and reduce what they call enhanced development costs such as structured parking which again can add thousands and thousands of dollars and really dissuade developers from building affordable housing.
Ed: Doug, what’s the perspective from the transportation side of the equation?
TM: 26:09
DS: I think Cameron really nailed it there. Developers don’t want parking minimums. That’s very demonstrated from their remarks over the years. It is just simply expensive and of course there’s situations where parking of course is necessary and certain amounts are necessary, but there are also types of developments where you may be able to get by with a significantly fewer number of parking spots which essentially transfers to more units of housing that you can build which is good for the developers. It’s also good for people looking for housing. I think it is really important to acknowledge like you said Ed that parking touches people on an individual level and can become very controversial. I think that’s why you are seeing like the couple pieces of legislation that Cameron mentioned. And the Colorado bill that was just enacted and signed into law recently, they got rid of parking minimums in areas eliminates parking minimums near new multifamily housing, near rail stations and bus stops. You have to have some sort of alternate choice. You have to give them some other real sort of options so I think that that’s the difficult balance there. But it is really interesting once again to see that with housing, with zoning and with something that is kind of in the weeds is parking minimums that we’re now seeing state legislators get involved and understand that maybe some of the existing kind of statutes and processes that we just have had in place have not really ended up working out as intended and they are kind of leading to us not meeting some other policy goals like air quality or reducing congestion or giving people more transportation choices. So, it is certainly a thorny topic, but I think that it is something that merits discussion. And it may not make sense to get rid of parking minimums in you know all situations certainly, but there are certain context and settings where it may make sense to get rid of those or reduce those.
Ed: You know as we wrap up, one thing we always like to talk about on this podcast and at NCSL generally is bipartisanship. Are these bipartisan efforts? I mean are you seeing people from both sides of the aisle getting involved in both the housing and transportation policies related to this?Cameron, what’s your view?
CR: Yeah. Absolutely. It is absolutely a bipartisan issue. It is attracting legislators from across the political spectrum. Red states. Blue states. Purple states. It’s folks working together within their state legislators. It’s very blue states passing housing. It’s very red states. I mentioned Montana. Kansas recently passed the rural opportunities zone loan repayment program which provides tax credits for qualified housing projects and establishes an older structures tax credit. So, we are really seeing that this is an issue in every state. Every state has a shortage of housing unfortunately in the United States. There is no state that is fully adequately addressing their housing needs. So big states, metropolitan areas, rural areas are all addressing housing and there really is a reason to be optimistic for housing policy going forward. It tends to be a less polarizing issue and everyone kind of sees it on a day-to-day basis. They see housing costs go up. They see neighbors and friends unable to secure housing. So, it really is an issue particularly in the last several years attracting the attention of state policymakers, local policymakers, federal policymakers, but particularly states. We’ve talked a little bit about transit-oriented development throughout this and there are states--Maryland, Rhode Island--again from everywhere geographically even addressing these issues and transportation is a big component of this. Yes, would be my answer. It certainly is a bipartisan issue that is getting support from a lot of folks.
Ed: Doug, you are going to get the last word here. What kind of feedback do you get when you talk to people around the country in terms of bipartisanship?
DS: Yeah, I would concur with what Cameron said. I mean I think it is interesting to see the wide kind of variety geographically and politically of states that are looking at these topics. I think certainly some of these things are more that we are talking about are probably a little bit more applicable in urban settings, but when you think about that most states even most you know small or less popular states, they have an urban area or two. And that’s where a lot of affordability pressures we are seeing are at. So, we are seeing success with states kind of taking more ownership of the housing issue and being more assertive in a wide variety of states. I do think that the carrot approach rather than the stick approach will probably always continue to be more popular. But I do think it is interesting is while you have seen states that have tried to get a little more assertive with like trying to withhold certain types of funds or be a little more about assertive about pushing towards a certain outcome. That does lead to some pushback from some folks and some stakeholders. But one thing I think that works somewhat in the favor of folks trying to make changes in all of this is that you do have the developer community is generally in favor of these sort of approaches. Once again there is the desire from the renters, the perspective homeowners on one side, but the developers want to do a lot of this too and they find that they maybe can’t to the degree that they could so I think what we are getting we’re moving towards is a little more synergy at least in certain contexts, in certain settings towards having the ability to build housing and more housing that serves the needs of constituents. So yeah, I do think it is bipartisan, but not to say that there’s not going to still be areas of disagreement about how far to go and how much to use a stick versus a carrot approach.
Ed: Cameron, did you have something you wanted to add before we closeout?
CR: What we’ve tried to mention throughout this is that there’s no one size fits all. That it’s a bipartisan issue and that you know Washington is going to react differently than Kentucky than Texas than Massachusetts. And so, it really takes that state local collaboration to understand the issue and better understand the needs and to really dig in and to see what might work.
Ed: Gentlemen, thank you both for highlighting this really important issue and I think you really gave people a lot to think about. Take care.
DS: Thank you, Ed.
CR: Thank you, Ed.
Ed: I’ve been talking with Doug Shinkle who heads NCSL’s transportation program and Cameron Rifkin a policy expert at NCSL about state efforts to encourage transit-oriented development. Thanks for listening.
TM: 32:58
You can check out all the podcasts from the National Conference of State Legislatures by searching for NCSL podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast “Our American States” dives into some of the most challenging public policy issues facing legislators. On “Across the Aisle” host Kelley Griffin tells stories of bipartisanship. Also check out our special series “Building Democracy” on the history of legislatures.