This is the Katori Daily Podcast for Monday, November 22nd, 2021.

I'm Caleb Brown.

New Rochelle, New York stands as a city that has gotten the government largely out of the way of new housing production.

Patrick Tuohy of the Better Cities Project says it's something other cities can easily emulate.

He explains how New Rochelle's city council got it done.

Housing is a huge problem in America and for, and I know you and I have discussed this, I've discussed this with Nolan Gray and some other people who follow housing very closely.

Even if you live in a city where housing is cheap and widely available and you feel comfortable with your situation. A lot of the problems, a lot of the

structures that exist in cities across the United States with regard to zoning and the approval process for new construction that sort of thing.

Those are the same structures that exist in a lot of the cities where we have this

skyrocketing prices because of decades of housing under production.

That's right.

And it's not necessarily market forces that are driving up the costs.

A lot of times it's the best intentions of local government, the process of getting approvals,

a permit, of building that takes so long and are so unpredictable for a developer that they'll take no for an answer, right? They'll like to be

told no, no you can't do this, that's fine. What drives up costs is being told yes, maybe in five years or invest a bunch of money and

come back to us in five years and maybe we'll change our plan it's that

uncertainty that's driving up cost even if you have a vibrant community and you've got an awful lot of demand. Cities get in their

own way. They say they want development and I believe they do but they can't take

their hands out of the till that want to micromanage.

So what did New Rochelle do?

Well, I guess we should understand this more broadly.

Zoning is overwhelmingly local.

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