Addressing planning misconceptions
Commentary during and since the November 9th, 2023 Planning Board hearing regarding the adoption of the proposed community master plan has revealed misconceptions about what this plan proposes in addition to misunderstandings of sound planning principles. It’s perfectly understandable that people feel strongly about these issues and everyone deserves the chance to express their views, including the many people who expressed support for housing and land use reform over the course of more than a year of public outreach to inform this proposed community master plan and whose perspectives have not been well-represented in the public discourse. We encourage everyone to remember and respect those perspectives too and prioritize facts and evidence in these discussions.
To that end, it’s important to clarify a number of misconceptions.
Misconception 1: There is a single solution to our housing problem. Many factors contribute to our very high housing prices, with zoning and land use policies representing just one of the factors. Reforming these policies will help, but they won’t solve the problem. No one policy will. But rejecting zoning and land use reform because it isn’t a silver bullet is misguided.
Misconception 2: This process is being rushed and needs to be paused. In reality, over a year of extensive public outreach was conducted and many Princetonians with varying perspectives informed the contents of this master plan. The public has now had a month to read the proposed plan and the Planning Board voluntarily opted to hold another meeting on November 30th, 2023 to allow for more public comment. This hardly indicates a rushed process. Delaying the process further does not seem warranted, especially given how much outreach has already taken place and has been reflected in this plan. Considering things from the perspective of families who are being displaced from Princeton or the urgency of promoting a more environmentally sustainable built environment, delay with no discernable timeline for action is costly and unfair to the many who have advocated for and support the modest reforms in this proposed plan.
Misconception 3: Housing will always be expensive in Princeton. Commenters have rightly pointed out that Princeton is a place of high housing demand and that this puts upward pressure on housing prices. What many have failed to acknowledge is that housing supply also matters for housing affordability, particularly in high demand places like Princeton. Decades of research clearly indicate this. When more and more buyers compete for a relatively constant set of housing units, the price of those housing units will rise. Supplying enough units helps contain these rising prices, but we haven’t done that. This captures a major culprit in Princeton’s housing price appreciation over the past few decades.
Misconception 4: Relaxing or removing zoning and land use restrictions promotes different housing sizes or types, not affordability. Housing types other than single-family detached homes that allow for multiple units will generally contain more units and smaller units and consequently, lower per-unit costs. In other words, promoting a diversity of housing types and sizes is directly related to affordability because smaller housing types allow more units to be added to the supply (more units to meet demand), are generally cheaper to construct (for an example of how housing types are related to prices, see manufactured homes), and are generally more energy-efficient. We’ve already seen proof in Princeton that these units are cheaper than a single-family detached home. Now, these resulting housing units are different than what is typically considered “affordable” housing – housing that is deed-restricted for low- and moderate-income households (hereafter referred to as low- and moderate-income housing). This housing is critically important, but it generally requires subsidies which fall outside of the purview of a community master plan. However, zoning and land use reforms that remove barriers and/or lower the costs of development also make it more affordable (aka more feasible) to build low- and moderate-income housing as well.
Misconception 5: Market-rate housing units will not immediately be affordable to those earning modest incomes, so they aren’t worth the effort. For one, smaller housing units at more reasonable densities promote many good things beyond housing affordability, including walkable and vibrant streets and fewer carbon emissions. But we often forget that the housing market is a connected system. Adding more types and units of housing to our supply improves affordability in two ways: (1) a household occupying a lower cost unit moves to a higher cost unit, thereby freeing up an additional unit (think of a young professional household that used to occupy a housing unit at a price below what it could afford because there were no other available units) and more importantly (2) the decline in prices over the long-term (relative to new housing units). People sometimes bristle at (1), but there’s good empirical proof of it. Plus, in case you don’t believe (1), you’ve almost certainly seen the process in reverse (affluent households pricing other households out for scarce and oftentimes modest homes) which is the status quo encouraged by our current zoning and land use policies. (2) is especially important because it suggests that it takes time for these reforms to take full effect, which should be expected. If we’ve done next to nothing to address undersupplied housing for several decades, why would we expect modest reforms to immediately solve everything? Again, additional efforts to target affordability at the low-end of the housing market are totally consistent and necessary complements to zoning and land use reform.
Misconception 6: Developers are a monolith. There are for-profit developers (Avalon) and there are non-profit developers (think Princeton Community Housing or Habitat for Humanity). Within the category of for-profit developers, there are additional distinctions, including very-large, national developers (e.g., Toll Brothers), regional developers, and then more local infill developers (which can include individual homeowners). Reducing zoning and land use barriers arguably benefits the non-profit developers and small-scale developers by lowering costs and reducing the advantage very-large corporate developers enjoy since these very-large developers have the resources to navigate (and benefit from) unnecessarily complex processes.
Misconception 7: Zoning and land use reform will only benefit developer profits. Developers already maximize profit from our zoning and land use regime by tearing down modest homes and building very large ones because that’s the best option they currently have. Now, imagine that instead of developing a $2 million single-family home on a lot, a developer builds four $500,000 homes. In this example, the developer makes the same profit, but the municipality gains four much more reasonably priced homes. This is not just a thought experiment – there’s proof that these reforms can work. Hopefully someday we can move towards a more robust public sector for housing construction, but until then, preventing developer profits should not outweigh more equitable housing outcomes. After all, we allow profits for companies that produce vaccines and electric vehicles that we benefit from.
Misconception 8: The community master plan recommendations to increase housing density in certain areas threaten our greenspaces. They do the opposite, actually. Promoting infill development at reasonable densities is associated with preservation of undisturbed natural environments, more walking, and more public transit – all things that move us towards a more environmentally sustainable future.
Misconception 9: Increasing housing density in already developed areas amounts to concentrating all additional housing units in one area. No one is seriously arguing this. The master plan recommends allowing incremental increases to density in areas that have the necessary infrastructure and lack environmentally sensitive features to make better use of land. If we limit building in undeveloped parts of the municipality (we should do this) and we forbid adding density anywhere else, we can’t build anything, which does nothing to change an unfair status quo.
Misconception 10: Increasing density ruins the character of neighborhoods. “Character”, particularly when undefined, is an awfully arbitrary reason for justifying policies that objectively produce housing inequality. If by “character” we mean an aesthetically pleasing built environment, that has more to do with good design and can be achieved at a range of densities. Moreover, the modest changes that the proposed master plan recommends imply incremental changes to some neighborhoods, not an overnight transformation.
Misconception 11: More housing = more traffic. More single-family detached housing on large lots almost certainly means more driving and more traffic. More ADUs, duplexes, triplexes, and multi-family housing – in other words, more compact, infill development – likely means less driving overall (particularly true for affordable housing developments since its residents are less-likely to own cars) with the potential for concentrating the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) that do happen in certain areas. However, additional density (along with frequent service) can help make other options – walking, biking, and public transit – more viable. The recently proposed Dinky expansion is a great example of promoting alternatives to driving that we are fortunate to benefit from and only underscores the importance of adding reasonable housing densities near these proposed transit stops to help reduce congestion and promote fewer transportation emissions. Finally, as one expert on the topic has noted, if we want to comprehensively reduce traffic congestion, we have to address the root of the problem and stop incentivizing driving through cheap or free driving and parking, not preventing infill housing development.
Misconception 12: Removing parking requirements = too few parking spaces. Removing a requirement is different from forbidding something. Removing minimum parking requirements simply means a developer cannot be forced to provide a minimum number of parking units, which are costly (up to $50,000 per space) and take up valuable land. Developers are still permitted to provide parking under these reforms and they typically still do when these requirements are removed, but they usually offer less than what used to be mandated, which saves money (lowering the cost to provide housing) and makes more efficient use of land.
Misconception 13: We can’t permit housing growth because it will put strain on the local schools. This is not our only option. As commenters have noted, we can debate how many school-aged children a particular development will bring into PPS (the best evidence does suggest that multi-family housing brings in fewer school-aged children than single-family detached homes), but it is true that adding meaningful amounts of housing to Princeton will bring in more school-aged children. We should welcome that. We can do this and acknowledge that our schools are nearing capacity. It would be far more effective and equitable to allow the tax base to grow and fund the construction of more school facilities than to try to limit all growth. The way we finance our schools fundamentally needs to be reformed, but in the meantime, that shouldn’t be an excuse to prohibit more housing in places where it is needed and close off access to our schools.