Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Previous studies have examined the link between land-use regulation and home prices extensively. Yet today there remain only a few studies that examine the influence of land-use regulation on housing affordability. Even more uncommon is a focus on the effects of specific types of regulation on individual households, and variations in these effects by racial and ethnic group. Utilizing a cross-sectional regression design analyzing Wharton Residential Land Use Regulation Survey data, land use regulation survey data developed by Pendall, Puentes, and Martin (2006), and American Community Survey data, we illuminate the impact of various kinds of exclusionary land use regulation on individual housing affordability by housing tenure and race. We find that mobile home bans have powerful and consistent effects on owner affordability and that African American affordability is especially harmed by multi-family development limits and Hispanic affordability by residential pace restrictions.