Airspace Rights and Affordable Housing Supply

Abstract

Murray and Gordon develop an “airspace rights” conception of zoning to critique recent reforms that upzone land without recapturing the value of privatized land use rights. This comment offers two objections to the arguments presented by the authors. First, given that zoned capacity determines long-run housing supply, upzoning offers one potential solution to the affordable housing crisis. Second, Murray and Gordon’s “public recapture” proposals could exacerbate the affordable housing crisis unless recaptured value is applied towards targeted affordable housing investments. For these and other reasons, Murray and Gordon fail to make a compelling case for recapturing the value of privatized airspace rights.

Keywords:

• Affordable housing supply
• land use
• zoning
• property rights

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Casey J. Dawkins

Casey J. Dawkins is a Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Maryland and a faculty member of the University of Maryland’s National Center for Smart Growth. His research interests include housing justice; U.S. housing policy analysis; metropolitan housing market dynamics; the causes, consequences, and measurement of residential segregation by race and income; homeownership tax preferences; and the link between land-use regulations and housing affordability.