Nashville’s Zoning Laws Are Contributing to Housing Prices 30 Percent Higher Than They Should Be, Experts Say

Housing prices continue to climb in Nashville as interest rates and scarcity of available homes combine with the overall desirability by people across the country to move to the Tennessee capital.

But additionally, data from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) College of Business shows from May 2023 that, the city’s housing is 33.41 percent higher than it should be. FAU determined what the average cost of a home in a city is and what the cost is expected to be by analyzing data from Zillow and other third-party housing data providers.

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Arizona House Committee Passes Two Bills Aimed at Improving Housing Zoning

Two bills passed through the House Commerce Committee Tuesday with bipartisan support, Senate Bills (SB) 1161 & 1163, aiming to provide zoning reform to Arizona so more affordable housing can be made available.

“Big wins yesterday getting 1161 and 1163 out of House Commerce 7-3 for each bill. This is bipartisanship! R’s and D’s understand we need zoning reform in AZ,” tweeted State Senator Steve Kaiser (R-Phoenix).

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Pennsylvania Progressives Propose Forcing Landlords to Accept Housing Vouchers

Two liberal Pennsylvania lawmakers on Friday proposed a law to force all landlords to accept housing vouchers.

In a memorandum describing their legislation, state Senators Katie Muth (D-Royersford) and Carolyn Comitta (D-West Chester) insisted that America’s current “public housing crisis” demands such a measure. They cited data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition indicating that a Pennsylvanian earning the state’s minimum wage of $7.25 per hour in 2022 would need to work 94 hours weekly to pay for a one-bedroom rental or 115 hours to afford a two-bedroom apartment. A resident working 40 hours a week would, they asserted, need to earn $20.90 hourly (almost three times the state minimum wage) to pay for a typical two-bedroom apartment. 

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Zoning Legislation Stirs Controversy in Connecticut

Democrats in Connecticut’s state House of Representatives are offering legislation they say will facilitate affordable housing and “racial justice,” though opponents of the measures say they will merely hamper local control of development.

One bill would mandate that municipalities permit housing containing a minimum of 15 dwelling units per acre within half-mile radiuses of rail stations. At least 10 percent of the units in such areas would be required to meet the state’s definition of affordable housing, i.e. that it costs an occupant no more than one third of his or her annual income. 

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Programming at Hillsdale’s Blake Center for Faith and Freedom in Somers, Connecticut to Begin This Spring

Programming at Hillsdale College’s new Blake Center for Faith and Freedom in Somers, Connecticut is scheduled to start this spring. 

In 2019, the late Friendly’s Ice Cream co-founder S. Prestley “Pres” Blake and his wife Helen offered their property at 732 Hall Hill Rd., along with $25 million, to the Michigan-based Christian college to establish an educational center consistent with the values of the school. Their now-repurposed home is modeled after Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and sits on about 100 verdant acres.

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Ben Carson’s HUD Revisits Obama Policies of Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Regulation

Ben Carson

By Robert Romano   “I would incentivize people who really would like to get a nice juicy government grant [to look at their zoning codes].” That was Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson in an Aug. 13 interview with the Wall Street Journal, announcing changes to the way the Trump administration would interpret the Obama era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing regulation. There’s only one problem. This year, under Division L, Title II of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, Section 234, Congress passed a provision that states, “None of the funds made available by this Act may be used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to direct a grantee to undertake specific changes to existing zoning laws as part of carrying out the final rule entitled ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing’ … or the notice entitled ‘Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Assessment Tool’ …” A similar provision passed the Senate 87 to 9 in 2016. This overturned part of the regulation that conditions receipt of $3 billion of annual community development block grants to more than 1,200 cities and counties to rezone neighborhoods along income and racial criteria. The regulation said, “This final rule, and Assessment Tools and…

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