Topic
Zoning, regulation, and policy decisions that shape what gets built.
Modular construction promises factory precision and compressed schedules. It delivers them — sometimes. This explainer walks through when modular pencils and when it quietly destroys a budget. The Three Questions That Matter Is your design repetitive enough to amortize factory…
For a decade, zoning reform was a conference panel topic and little else. In the past two years it has become statute in a growing list of states and cities, and the development math is shifting with it. Watch the By-Right Pathway The reforms that matter are the ones that make…
Capital is available. Land is available. The binding constraint on housing supply in most expensive metros is the months — sometimes years — it takes to get a permit. Time Is the Tax Every month of entitlement delay is carrying cost, rate risk, and political risk compounding…
Minneapolis became the case study everyone cites and few read carefully. The reform was real, the effects were measurable, and the lessons are more nuanced than either side admits. Supply Responds — Slowly Ending single-family-only zoning did not unleash an overnight building…
Inclusionary zoning requires a share of new units to be affordable. The politics are intuitive; the economics are unforgiving, and getting the ratio wrong stops production entirely. The Feasibility Cliff Set the affordability requirement too high and developers simply do not…
Required parking ratios are a hidden tax on housing — land and capital spent on cars instead of people. Eliminating them is among the highest-leverage reforms available, and it costs the public nothing. Less Concrete, More Homes When cities drop parking minimums, infill projects…
Office-to-residential conversion is the policy world's favorite solution to two problems at once. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of office buildings are terrible candidates. Floor Plates and Risers Decide Deep floor plates leave windowless interiors; central…
It almost always takes a stack, not a single source: LIHTC equity, soft debt from the jurisdiction, a density bonus to add market-rate units that cross-subsidize, and increasingly a conversion or land contribution to reset basis. The single biggest lever, though, is time. Every month of entitlement delay is carrying…
Three hard screens, in order. Floor plate depth — past roughly 90 feet window-to-window and you get dark interiors no layout fixes. Plumbing — office cores cluster wet stacks centrally; residential wants them distributed, and re-running risers is where budgets die. Curtain wall — if it can't open or be cheaply…
Read more →Three screens before anything else: Floor plate depth — anything much past 90 feet window-to-window leaves you with dark bedrooms or donut corridors that destroy efficiency. Plumbing risers — office cores cluster wet stacks centrally; residential wants them distributed. Retrofitting risers through occupied-floor slabs…
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