A Virginia metropolis eradicated single-family-only zoning. Then the lawsuits got here.

Dive Temporary:

• The Roanoke, Virginia, Metropolis Council is reassessing zoning modifications it handed final 12 months that eradicated single-family-only zoning and allowed multifamily housing in areas the place it had beforehand been excluded after two lawsuits from residents challenged the reforms.
• The lawsuits have price town greater than $85,000 in authorized payments as of Might, the Roanoke Rambler reported. Each lawsuits have been paused in late August after the Metropolis Council agreed to evaluate the zoning modifications, the Cardinal Information reported. 
• Two Metropolis Council members will suggest amendments to the zoning reforms over the subsequent month and current them to the general public, in line with the report.

Dive Perception:

The U.S. doesn’t have sufficient housing to satisfy its wants. Estimates of the shortfall vary from 1.5 million to three.7 million items, in line with the Joint Heart for Housing Research at Harvard College, citing information from the Nationwide Affiliation of Dwelling Builders and the Federal Dwelling Mortgage Mortgage Corp. 

Reforming native zoning legal guidelines that prohibit multifamily housing improvement in sure areas is a method cities can improve reasonably priced housing manufacturing. Backlash from residents could be sturdy, nevertheless. Roanoke will not be the one metropolis to face resident lawsuits.

“A smaller group of native residents does generally cease reforms to permit extra properties,” Alex Horowitz, challenge director for housing coverage initiatives on the Pew Charitable Trusts, informed Bankrate in December.

When Charlottesville, Virginia, tried to put off single-family-only zoning final 12 months, a state choose voided the measure on a technicality, successfully leaving town with no zoning code. 

Austin, Texas, confronted a flurry of authorized challenges when it moved to scale back housing lot dimension necessities from 5,750 sq. ft to 1,800 sq. ft per single-family home final 12 months. Town misplaced in courtroom in 2020, in line with KUT Information, however a substitute measure has prevailed — to this point.

A number of states have tried to take management of native zoning — and have confronted related pushback. Six cities in Colorado sued the state this spring over makes an attempt to impose housing and zoning reforms to create extra reasonably priced housing.

Roanoke issued a examine of its zoning amendments final 12 months to handle resident considerations about elevated density. It concluded that the “anticipated price of change on the variety of new dwelling items and associated density will inherently be incremental and gradual over time with restricted, if any, results on infrastructure and public companies.”