The 2024 Housing Leadership Summit brought together housing advocates, industry leaders, and policymakers for insightful discussions on increasing housing affordability in the United States.
Agenda:
- 2024 State Reform Recap
- Building A Pro-Reform Coalition
- United States of Housing Report
- Keynote: Housing Experts Talk Reform
- Unpacking An Impactful Supreme Court Term
- Keeping Housing Bipartisan
Thank you to Zillow and the Polymeric Exterior Products Association for sponsoring this year’s summit.
2024 State Reform Recap
Modernizing land use laws was on the agenda for several states in 2024 and moderator Phil Crone, vice president of legislative and political affairs for Leading Builders of America, asked our panel to share insights from their work in Arizona, Colorado, and Minnesota.
The panel included Eleni Angelides, deputy legislative director and special advisor on housing for Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, Minnesota House Housing Chair Rep. Mike Howard, and Jackson Moll, CEO of Central Arizona Homebuilders Association.
Different States and Markets, Same Crisis
Each state is facing a multi-pronged housing crisis. Arizona, Colorado, and Minnesota don’t have enough homes, causing existing home prices and rents to increase. Each state has cost pressures that are adding to the cost of new construction, pricing out would-be buyers from the market.
As moderator Phil Crone pointed out, it isn’t a “housing crisis” in these and other states, but a “housing policy crisis.”
What they have in common is their housing crises have reached a point where a bipartisan set of legislators, fueled by broad coalitions, are seeking state-level reforms that address the scope of their unique challenges.
In each state, comprehensive land use reforms were on the legislative agenda, and not for the first time. And in each state, the legislation progressed further than ever before.
Defeated, but undeterred
Angelides shared the story of the “Colorado Comeback.” Following reform-centric legislation failing to pass in the final moments of 2023, Gov. Polis and his team were back in 2024, bringing several policy reforms across the finish line, including transit-oriented communities, ADUs, occupancy limit reforms, and parking reforms.
A similar story played out in Arizona, where after 2023’s defeat, major bills crossed the line in 2024, including ADUs, multi-family in commercial zones, and missing middle for communities with more than 75,000 residents. One thing left on the table, Moll said, was the Arizona Starter Home Act.
As for Minnesota, Rep. Howard noted the Legislature took reforms the furthest they have come in Minnesota and passed legislation combating environmental NIMBYism by passing a bill that exempts comprehensive plans from environmental reviews.
Recipe for Success
What was the recipe for success in Arizona and Colorado?
- Coalitions: Large, diverse coalitions have brought needed attention to the issue as well as communicated why reforms are necessary in a manner that resonates with different policymakers across the country. Both states were no different.
- Bipartisanship: Bills in both states had bipartisan support.
- Small Bites: Both states tried a single-massive bill approach in 2023, only to find it was too complex and too controversial for legislators. Both states were back in 2024 with smaller bills, bringing much, but not all across the finish line in 2024.
This is the same strategy experts from California, Montana, and the Mercatus Center shared at the 2023 Housing Leadership Summit. <Link>
Moll also noted the importance of not compromising on issues that would make reforms ineffective. In a previous session, the coalition in Arizona resisted the Arizona Municipal League’s compromise on ADUs that would have watered down the bill, and Moll highlighted this as a turning point that led to victory with multiple bills this past session.
In Colorado, Angelides highlighted that Gov. Polis’s leadership on this issue was critical as it signaled to the legislature that it was a top priority for him in 2023 and 2024.
What’s Next
No state has solved its housing crisis in a single legislative session and each presenter said they are looking to make more change in 2025.
“Housing hits every issue,” said Angelides. Colorado will continue to seek comprehensive housing reforms as housing reform is essential to addressing multiple issues.
Moll says the Arizona Starter Home Act was the biggest piece left on the table this year, and they will be back to pass legislation to address the lack of new starter homes and address the water challenges related to new development.
Rep. Howard said he will continue to press on reforms, calling for new starter homes, creating more housing options, ending aesthetic mandates, allowing multi-family dwellings in commercial zones, and streamlining land use permitting as primary objects in 2025.
Related: 2024 State Legislatures and Housing Reform
Building A Pro-Reform Coalition
Mark Foster, vice president of legislative and political affairs for Housing First Minnesota, Cristen Incitti, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Minnesota, and Anne Mavity, executive director of Minnesota Housing Partnership discussed how to build and lead broad-based coalitions.
“It was said the only people missing from the coalition were cities,” said Foster. “Yet that wasn’t quite accurate…The bills were sponsored by former city council members and even a former mayor.”
Mavity added that the local officials who supported the Minnesota legislation played an important role in advancing legislation this past session.
Incitti noted that there was also support from local officials outside the Twin Cities metropolitan area. For them, Incittii said, infrastructure is critical, and bringing this topic into the conversation will be crucial to growing the coalition from local government.
Messaging is also critical, Incitti added. “Focus your message on persuadable people,” she said. “
Mavity stressed that your coalitions can never be too large, noting that “coalitions are big tents, and these tents need to be bigger.”
United States of Housing Report
Housing Affordability Institute released its inaugural annual report in conjunction with this year’s event. United States of Housing examines the state of housing affordability and homeownership in America in the prior year.
The report highlighted housing production, affordability, and key market statistics for the prior year. Its featured report highlights why the term “housing crisis” is the most apt description for the state of housing in America today.
Keynote: Housing Experts Talk Reforms
Tobias Peter, co-director of American Enterprise Institute’s Housing Center, and Seva Rodnyansky, manager of the Housing Policy Initiative at Pew Charitable Trusts sat down with Nick Erickson, executive director of Housing Affordability Institute, to better understand what the data says about housing reform.
Smaller lots and light touch density can have a positive impact on housing affordability, even in rural areas, said Peter. A recent AEI report looked at Dilworth, Minn., where larger single-family detached homes were built across the street from smaller twin homes 21 years ago. Today, the twin homes are priced 26% less than the larger homes, making this missing middle housing type an affordable onramp to homeownership.
Earlier this year, Pew highlighted the . Rodnyansky said it was possible to trace Minneapolis’s repforms back 2009. The cumulative impact of initially small reforms, such as eliminating parking mandates downtown, led
The Minneapolis approach, Rodnyansky noted, led to a decrease in homelessness when it increased elsewhere across Minnesota and held rent inflation below wage growth. Houston, Rodnyansky said, had a similar story: more housing led to slower housing inflation and less homelessness compared to peer cities.
When asked what’s next beyond just land use reforms, both highlighted the building code as a next frontier for housing reform. Peter noted that the International Code Council has been under increased scrutiny in how building codes increase the code of housing beyond basic safety, durability and efficiency.
Rodnyansky said single-stair multi-family dwellings and manufactured housing are emerging as two topics outside land use that have been gaining the attention of policymakers.
Unpacking An Impactful Supreme Court Term
The most recent United States Supreme Court Term included several notable cases impacting the housing industry.
To unpack this monumental term, Housing Affordability Institute turned to two attorneys: Bryan Huntington of sustaining partner Larkin Hoffman and Brian Hodges of Pacific Legal Foundation. Hodges was on the Sheetz legal team and has worked on other landmark Supreme Court decisions.
In Sheetz v. El Dorado, the Court provided a major victory for affordability when it unanimously declared that legislative acts, such as municipal fee schedules, are not immune from the takings requirements of Nollan-Dolan.
Hodges began by outlining why impact fees in California have become a top-level concern from an affordability perspective. “By the time Mr. Sheetz applied for a permit to build a small 1,800 square foot home just a few miles outside of town, the imposed traffic fee alone was $23,420,” Hodges said. “Which, as an aside, it is the highest traffic impact fee in the entire nation.”
The mentality in California, Hodges said, is that businesses will not tolerate new fees, which instead get placed on new-home buyers.
Hodges noted that Sheetz is good for the housing industry as it brings greater scrutiny on impact fees, fees which increase the cost of housing, in turn inhibiting housing access.
Although not involved with some of the other impactful decisions, Hodges and Huntington briefly touched on the end of the Chevron Doctrine.
In Loper Bright v. Raimondo, the so-called Chevron Doctrine was overturned, ending four decades of Federal agencies interpreting their regulations without judicial oversight.
Keeping Housing Bipartisan
Housing reform is an issue that continues to cut across traditional political lines.
To see why housing has been and should remain bipartisan, Housing Affordability Institute board member and regional government affairs manager for Zillow, Beth Wanless asked two local legislators, State Sen. Lindsey Port (D), chair of the Minn. Senate Housing Committee, and State Sen. Eric Lucero (R), ranking member on the Minn. Senate Housing Committee to share their insights on the topic.
On what the housing crisis looks like in their district, Sen. Port, who represents suburban communities reaching the end of their initial development cycle highlighted how the lack of supply has impeded housing mobility.
Sen. Lucero, who represents a greenfield district, noted how high the cost of new housing has grown in his district over a few years with new single-family detached homes now starting in the $560,000.
Both panelists were asked why housing reform resonates with their party’s political philosophy.
“Government policy and mandates are standing in the way of individuals pursuing happiness,” said Sen. Lucero, who added that the ultimate in local control is that of the property owner.
Sen. Port highlighted how zoning’s history as a tool of exclusion continues to be felt today.
“People should have an opportunity to live in the kind of housing that they want to live, in the community that they want to live in,” Port said. “Historically, regulations about zoning and land use have been used to segregate communities and though that might not be as explicit as it was during the days of redlining, it is still one of the main factors behind so many laws as they exist and we can’t pretend that that’s not true.”
While they come to the issue of housing reform from different viewpoints, both panelists said that housing reform is too important to become partisan.
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