Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week’s newsletter takes a look at former President Barack Obama’s recent speech in which he urged Democrats to be more YIMBY. Also included is an update on Charlottesville, Virginia, which—contra the city’s previous statements—still has a zoning code after all. Obama Wants Democrats To […]
A New Jersey town’s attempt to bypass the state’s affordable housing mandate has hit a roadblock. On June 27, the New Jersey Superior Court upheld a trial court ruling preventing Middletown Township from using eminent domain to seize a 52-acre property that previously housed a Circus Liquor Store and turn it into a commercial development […]
Illustration: Lex Villena; Lev Kropotov Next year is the 100th anniversary of Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty, the Supreme Court decision upholding exclusionary zoning. I think Euclid is one of the worst supreme Court decisions ever, and exclusionary zoning – and the resulting massive housing shortage of which it is the biggest cause – […]
Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week’s stories include: The Supreme Court’s decision not to take up a major challenge to Los Angeles’ COVID-era eviction moratorium Maine passes a suite of zoning reforms. The urbanist case for tourist traps But first, our lead item on how a challenge to slightly […]
NA On Monday, California enacted an important new law breaking down a key regulatory barrier to new housing construction. The CalMatters website has a helpful summary: A decade-spanning political battle between housing developers and defenders of California’s preeminent environmental law likely came to an end this afternoon with only a smattering of “no” votes. The […]
Happy Tuesday, and welcome to the latest edition of Rent Free. This week’s newsletter includes stories on: The triumphant, albeit technical, return of missing middle housing in Arlington, Virginia New York’s Rent Guidelines Board allows a 3 percent rent increase. It’s not just Zohran Mamdani. In New York, everyone’s a socialist on housing. But first, […]
Earlier this month, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Robert Lougy rejected a lawsuit filed by Local Leaders for Responsible Planning (LLRP)—a coalition of 29 New Jersey townships—alleging that the state’s affordable housing law violates the General Welfare Clause of the New Jersey Constitution. The housing law, signed by Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy in March 2024, […]
San Francisco and Austin are both known for their trendsetting tech sectors and cultural scenes. But while Austin is enjoying the best of times, for San Francisco, it’s starting to feel like the worst. San Francisco’s population has dropped for the fourth year in a row. It saw one of the largest percentage declines among […]
Sen. Mike Lee’s (R–Utah) proposal to require the sale of a de minimis amount of Western public lands was dealt a potentially fatal blow yesterday when the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the provision could not be included in the reconciliation bill moving through Congress. The ruling follows a relentless opposition campaign to Lee’s proposal from […]
Zohran Mamdani’s upset victory in the New York Democratic Mayoral Primary on Tuesday puts the self-proclaimed socialist one step closer to enacting his far-ranging left-wing agenda. At the top of the candidate’s list, as Reason‘s Liz Wolfe covered this morning, is his call to freeze rents on New York’s roughly one million rent-stabilized housing units. […]
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