Local Land-Development Policies and Urban Housing Values

This paper evaluates the urban housing price impacts of local state land-development policy, and suggests that local governments have multiple objectives and constraints which shape their policy stance toward growth. Based on analyses of San Francisco Bay Area suburban cities, we find that land-use policies of the local state have important housing price effects, with restrictive policies increasing average home values by approximately 15%. Findings on local motivations for use of land-use controls suggest that such policies are adopted to protect private and public consumption levels of residents and thus insure reproduction of social relations. However, constraints on development policy, deriving from historical conditions of urbanization and configuration of the local economic base; development policies of neighboring jurisdictions; and past development policies in a locality, are important factors shaping land-development policy of the local state.