Mike Watson, AARP:Welcome.
Rodney Harrell, AARP: Yes, Mike, it’s fantastic to be here again.
So Mike, what should our viewers know to get started today?
And just like yesterday, let’s go ahead and get the conversation going there.
So yesterday we asked you to share the biggest challenge your community is facing on housing.
On your screen again, you should see the instructions for joining Slido.
Now with that, Rodney, are we ready to test out a poll?
Rodney Harrell:We are.
I’m excited and ready to go on these today.
We did such a good job yesterday, so let’s test this out now with a poll question.
And so follow these instructions and confirm that you’re on “Polls” tab of the Slido app.
So here’s that warmup question first.
What state or country are you joining us from today?
So let’s go ahead and enter those in.
So Mike, what kind of places are we seeing up there?
So let’s go to our first one and see how you all do.
We know that how land is zoned can be so important in addressing a myriad of housing challenges.
Is it 35 percent, 55 percent, 75 percent or 60 percent.
Now this is a tough one, so Mike, what are we seeing out there?
So really, a belief that a lot of land out there is zoned for single-family use.
So can you tell us what’s the correct answer?
Rodney Harrell:Well, we’re generally right.
So it’s a really big issue, and good job on getting that close to right, everyone.
All right, I think we’ve got that one down.
So, with that, I’d like to hear from our first speaker, Sara Bronin.
Sara spent some time with us earlier and shared some of her important work.
After that pre-recorded keynote presentation, she’ll also be here live to answer your questions.
So before we hear her presentation, I want to remind everyone one more time about the Slido platform.
You’ll see there instructions on how to ask a question.
I think we should start by talking about what zoning is.
So for example, it will separate out commercial and residential property, industrial property, and park land.
But it’s not just uses that zoning covers.
As I said, it covers structures and lots, it also might cover design particulars.
Why does this one have parking?
Why is this lot so big?
Oftentimes the answer is because of a zoning code requires it.
And it shows how the downtown zoning districts delineate different characteristics of buildings.
So different districts are organized and regulated differently, and that, in a nutshell is what zoning is.
Important to our conversation today is a phrase called exclusionary zoning.
So what is exclusionary zoning?
It is the kind of zoning that keeps affordable housing out of certain neighborhoods.
So an exclusionary zoning might take a number of different forms.
It might require a house of a certain size.
It might require large lots which are very expensive.
And finally, exclusionary zoning also creates worse health and educational outcomes for people.
So because of excluded people from high opportunity neighborhoods, it often reduces their access to those neighborhoods.
More generally, zoning impacts equity, the economy, and the environment.
It impacts every aspect of our economy and our society.
From an equity standpoint, I’ve talked a little bit about how zoning might have some exclusionary effects.
Zoning also impacts the environment.
You have to drive because it makes those places so far apart.
So these rules are not written by the federal government, by Congress.
These rules are written by people in your community at the local level.
Now oftentimes those people tend to be homeowners, they tend to be older.
Surveys have showed they tend to be whiter as well.
So that might be something for you to check out.
Who is writing the rules in your community.
I should note too that the people who serve on these commissions are volunteers.
So you’re next question might be, how can we change zoning?
What are the mechanisms by which we can do that?
The reason that information is so important can be illustrated by the example in Connecticut.
It’s the Desegregate Connecticut Zoning Atlas.
And Connecticut’s pretty manageable.
And whether it requires minimum lot sizes.
It shows that 91 percent of Connecticut has single-family zoning.
And so single-family zoning is a really interesting and uniquely American tradition.
Here is a snapshot of our sprawling project team as it stood a few months ago.
There’s many more people to add to this image now.
And the many partners that we had in this effort.
We had about 80 nonprofit community organizations that are part of our coalition.
And then we have reports on minimum lot sizes and the impacts of those and other reports too.
So one place to think about where we might look to make zoning better is state legislatures.
And that’s, in fact, the approach that we took through Desegregate Connecticut.
So for example, President Biden just released an executive order about the supply of affordable housing.
We’d love to seed teams in the states that we haven’t currently touched.
And zoning, I would argue, plays an essential and quite overlooked role in this discussion.
So I’m really glad that you joined me today.
Mike Watson:Well that was just incredible.
I hope you enjoyed that.
Sara, thank you so much for being here with us.
Sara Bronin:Thank you so much for having me.
Mike Watson:Thanks again.
Your presentation was so impactful for folks.
Kind of stoked a lot of curiosity, so we’re going to go ahead and jump in.
Sara Bronin:Sure.
So very excited that folks are interested and eager to have more states and more teams come on board.
Mike Watson:Fantastic.
Thank you for reinforcing that, Sara.
And just a reminder, you might volunteer yourself or as Sara said, you might volunteer somebody else.
So kindly go ahead and do that.
Mike Watson:Thanks, Sara.
Thank you for kind of defining that for us and explaining what it is in the context.
Can you respond to that question and share any thoughts from your experience?
So if the question is really about, will this bring up the door to commercial or industrial uses.
Mike Watson:Love that, I love the notion of living and staying.
And love the notion of pro-home as well.
As we’re looking, there are several more types of questions coming in.
One of them is specifically geared toward rural areas.
Sara Bronin:So rural communities have zoning issues just like urban and suburban communities.
We’ve seen that in Connecticut for sure over the last 25, 30 years.
We’ve seen residential sprawl take the place of productive farmland.
And that’s something that rural communities are facing as development keeps pushing outward.
Mike Watson:Very well said.
Mike Watson:Fantastic, Sara.
That was so wonderful.
Thank you again, Sara.
Sara Bronin:Thank you.
Rodney Harrell:That was great, Mike.
It warms my urban planner heart to have such a great conversation about zoning.
So my thanks again to Sara for joining us.
The presentation transcript was created by an automated transcription tool.
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