NYC office conversions face scrutiny after Pfizer HQ incident

Buckling columns at the former Pfizer headquarters this week forced evacuations across seven Midtown East blocks. The incident raises new questions about office-to-residential conversion, one of several tools the city has used to add housing. It is also a tool Mayor Zohran Mamdani leaned into because it fit his affordability narrative. Mamdani has framed housing […]

North Carolina kicks parking rules to the curb in statewide reform

North Carolina housing advocates have tried for years to pass state-level zoning reform. They kept falling short. Broad reforms met the same fate in the recently ended session – except one: parking reform. What started as a stormwater management bill became one of the most aggressive parking reforms in the country. It passed with rare […]

May rent trends run sideways as multifamily supply stays strong

Policymakers have been making the case that more supply is a better check on housing costs than rent stabilization. May apartment rental data backs up that narrative. Rents ticked up modestly last month, the fifth consecutive month of sequential growth. But May’s reading was the lowest for that month since 2010, according to apartment data […]

Akron looks to deflate minimum lot size rules to spur infill

Leaders in Akron, a heartland city nearly 40 miles south of Cleveland, hope to shed the city’s “Rust Belt” label and drive its emerging revival by making it easier to build new homes. To achieve the objective, planners believe they’re on the verge of eliminating minimum lot sizes to counteract a shrinking-city paradox. Population loss […]

Pennsylvania ADU bill clears House, heads to Senate

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro declared he intended to go big on housing. On Monday, at least one piece of that ambition cleared the state House with a bipartisan vote, setting up a tougher sell in the Republican-controlled Senate. The House passed House Bill 2186, requiring municipalities statewide to allow one accessory dwelling unit per residential […]

Mamdani’s $22 billion ‘grand bargain’ for NYC affordable housing

Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor on one promise: make New York City affordable again. This week, he moved to further dismantle the rules New York spent decades erecting to prevent residential density. Mamdani released a 10-year housing plan pledging to build 200,000 new affordable homes while preserving 200,000 more. “These are the most ambitious affordable […]

New Rochelle housing surge proves predictable zoning’s impact

New Rochelle embraced the abundance mindset long before the “yes in my backyard ” crowd made it cool. Today, the city, 25 minutes north of New York City by train, is a reference point for how zoning reform and predictable approvals can speed mixed-income housing production citywide. The city built on a 2015 rezoning that […]

After pushback, New Hampshire course-corrects pro-housing laws

Last year, New Hampshire lawmakers jumped on the bandwagon of state legislatures targeting a worsening housing shortage by mandating that local governments permit multifamily housing in commercially zoned areas. The effort sought to boost housing supply and improve affordability by stripping away local zoning authority. Local governments, true to the state’s “live free or die” […]

Sparks flare over Florida law to target idle golf courses for housing 

A bill overriding local zoning authority to allow housing on idle Southeast Florida golf courses drew little public attention during Florida’s legislative session. When the Infill Redevelopment Act passed, warnings over problems it could cause bubbled up, but only in limited circles. It passed in March without a single “nay” vote in the Senate and […]