In Wellesley, Massachusetts, it is basically illegal to build a starter home, and it looks like it will stay that way. The voters of Massachusetts appear to have rejected a measure that would have overridden local laws that ban modest lots.
This sounds like an arcane battle between state law and local zoning regulations, but it’s actually one of the most important policy reforms a state could make these days.
Houses are way too expensive. Specifically, young couples cannot buy a first house and start a family. Home unaffordability is driving the baby bust, and it’s also driving the lurch leftward by young adults.
The best policy response is, as Ed Pinto at the American Enterprise Institute puts it, to legalize the starter home. A starter home doesn’t have to be big. It does have to be affordable. And ideally, it’s a single-family home, attached or detached.
So while there are all sorts of zoning regulations that drive up the cost of buying a home, the most anti-family rule is probably the minimum-lot-size rule. More to the point, the most pro-family zoning reform would be to abolish, or weaken, minimum-lot-size rules.
The median home in Wellesley costs $2 million, and one of the reasons is the minimum lot size. Zoning laws set a minimum lot size of 10,000 square feet, and that’s only in some parts of town. In much of the town, lots have to be 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, or even 50,000 square feet.
Question 7 in Massachusetts would strike down these local laws, forbidding towns from setting a minimum lot size any bigger than 5,000 square feet. That’s a lot with 50 feet of sidewalk frontage and a depth of 100 feet. That’s not a tiny lot.
But as of 10 a.m. Wednesday, the measure is trailing by 22,500 votes, or about 1 percentage point, with 89% of the vote in. Check the New York Times election map, and you’ll see the wealthy liberal suburbs voted against family formation and affordability.
TOWNHOUSES MAY BE THE SWEET SPOT FOR FAMILY-FRIENDLY HOUSING
Wellesley, for instance, voted 58%-42% against the deregulation. The same town voted 74% for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris last election, compared to the statewide 61%. To be fair, more Republican towns in central Massachusetts also generally voted no. It was the college towns that voted to legalize smaller lots.
As long as governments ban affordable homes, homes will be unaffordable, family formation will be delayed, and college students will demand socialism.