OPINION: Deregulate zoning and watch Anchorage prosper

Housing affordability is a hotly debated topic these days, especially on the West Coast, where housing costs and homelessness are soaring. The YIMBY movement — as in “yes in my backyard” — which promotes housing abundance, continues to gain support in high-housing-cost cities. Now the YIMBY/NIMBY (“not in my backyard”) debate has come to Anchorage. The proposed zoning changes before the Assembly (AO No. 2023-66) seek to deregulate zoning, empower builders and make it easier for individual homeowners to build on their lots. And the NIMBYs will no doubt come out in force in opposition, perhaps even with their “torches and pitchforks,” as Paul Jenkins called for in his broadside against these changes (“Radical zoning overhaul is a loser of an idea,” July 23).

Jenkin’s essay read like a caricature of the NIMBY position. He poked fun at the idea that “government knows best,” only to assert that deregulation, long the pet project of government-skeptical libertarians, is actually a form of government overreach, at least when applied to zoning — never mind that the elimination of restrictive zoning will shrink the scope of government and empower individuals. Jenkins then bizarrely argued that the only folks to benefit from more housing will be rich bankers and developers, ignoring the fact that high housing costs are the primary driver of homelessness, as a recent study by the UCSF Benioff Homeless and Housing Initiative confirmed. And high housing costs also foil young people trying to buy starter homes or rent apartments — no wonder so many are leaving states and municipalities with high housing costs. But all Jenkins can imagine is “instant slums,” which is when it became clear his essay had entered fever-dream territory.

That said, there is a serious conversation to be had about the merits of zoning changes that promote housing abundance. In a recent post, the blogger Freddie DeBoer offers a plausible explanation as to why the YIMBY agenda is viewed so skeptically in prosperous communities: “For the vast majority of homeowners, their home will be the most expensive and consequential thing they buy. Nothing they buy will have a more direct impact on their day-to-day quality of life. And the way that they determine if a given house is the right one for them is to say, ‘Do I like this place? Is this a good area? Do I want to live here?’ Then YIMBYs come in and say, ‘Hey, we’d like to totally transform most of those things that drove your choice about where you want to live, and by the way in doing so we’re going to seriously degrade the price of the single most valuable asset you will ever own.’ And then YIMBYs are perpetually shocked and aggrieved that those NIMBYs aren’t on board!”

This is a straw-man depiction of the YIMBY position, and badly it misunderstands the economics of housing abundance, but it’s an accurate picture of how many people feel about changes to their neighborhoods and threats to the value of their dwellings. And DeBoer is right that those who support housing abundance need to reckon with these anxieties, just as they’ll need to contend with arguments like Jenkins’ that amount to “nothing should ever drastically change.”

So, what do YIMBYs want? That’s simple: the reduction of red tape around housing development, the barring frivolous lawsuits to stop construction, especially near public transit, and the empowerment of individual lot owners to do what they want with their properties through less restrictive zoning. In other words, the kinds of policies that have long enabled American economic flexibility and prosperity. The model for YIMBYs is Houston, city of lax land use regulation. Given the links between Alaska and Texas, Houston seems like a fine model for Anchorage to aspire to. Here is how the Christian Science Monitor describes what the Houston experiment has enabled. Not slums. Not towering apartments without buffers. Rather, “relaxed rules around minimum lot sizes seem to have enabled denser, more diverse housing such as duplexes and townhomes in high-demand neighborhoods,” which puts the lie to Jenkins’s argument that zoning deregulation will be foisted by “the government” on unsuspecting middle-class neighborhoods (as if “the government” isn’t the force propping up the current restrictive zoning regime).

But what about housing prices, the heart of DeBoer’s concerns and, surely, of many voters? Yes, if zoning is deregulated, housing costs should fall as more multifamily housing is constructed, but, as Josh Barro points out, the value of land should increase, benefiting all single-family homeowners who own their lots. True, there will be construction noise, and, in some neighborhoods, parking concerns. But think of the larger benefits: young families buying homes instead of leaving the city. Folks who run into a rough patch finding a spare room in a family member’s apartment instead of being told, “No, so sorry, our place is full. There’s just no space,” and being forced to spend first one night on the street, and then another, and then a life.

As always, the devil will be in the details, but I think Meg Zaletel and Kevin Cross are on to something. If a sensible agenda of zoning deregulation passes the Assembly, it will open the door to change and increase affordability and prosperity for Anchorage. And however unnerving, change is the only way increased prosperity is ever achieved.

Andrew Harnish is an assistant professor in the Department of Writing at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

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