With the country’s housing crisis continuing to worsen, dozens of states are adopting policy reforms aimed at increasing housing supply as they reconsider the effectiveness of local control over land use processes, according to an analysis by the NYU Furman Center.
The increasing pace of legislative activity represents a seismic shift of unprecedented reform at the state level with jurisdictions updating policies to allow more types of housing to be built. For example, states have approved measures to legalize accessory dwelling units, to make it easier to site manufactured homes in areas zoned for single-family housing, and to allow more density “as-of-right” near transit.
“Research shows us that land use regulations–rules that govern how land is developed, what uses and types of structures can be built where–can present a substantial barrier to building more homes in certain markets, thus worsening the housing affordability crisis for all,” said Helen Ketema, State Housing and Land Use Policy Fellow at the NYU Furman Center, during a recent webinar on the release of a new resource, The Land Use Reform Tracker. “Zoning has historically been a local matter, but local governments derive that power from the state, and we found a wide spectrum of state interventions aimed at boosting the housing supply.”
The NYU Furman Center’s Land Use Reform Tracker, which provides a database on laws passed at the state level, found that 38 states had reforms enacted from 2017 to 2024, with California, Oregon, Montana, Utah, and Rhode Island leading the way. It also shows that some states passed significant reforms through either a housing omnibus or smaller package of bills.
“If you have studied the history of land use in this country, you know that is absolutely a sea change from what we had seen in the previous 80 years,” said Jenny Schuetz, Vice President of Infrastructure and Housing at Arnold Ventures, who moderated the panel discussion. “It is not just a Northeast phenomenon or a West Coast phenomenon. These are states literally from coast to coast. These are places with very diverse housing markets, different political contexts, different existing policy frameworks, and that’s going to be important for researchers who are studying them.”
Navigating Differing Policy Environments
During the panel discussion, policy stakeholders from Montana, Connecticut, Utah, and Oregon discussed legislative changes in their respective states, highlighting the different stages of land use reform efforts and how they have navigated different policy environments.
Sean Edging, Senior Housing Planner at Oregon’s Housing Accountability and Production Office (HAPO) discussed how his office– a joint endeavor between the Department of Land Conservation and Development and the state’s building code division– has focused on short-term reforms to build capacity and reduce barriers to boosting housing production in the near term.
While his office is responsible for enforcement, it also provides developers and local governments with tools, including technical assistance, model codes that reflect new legislative changes, and facilitate coordination among different state agencies regarding development projects.
“Something that we’ve been learning as we’ve been getting into this work is we really want to make implementation and compliance the easiest choice for both local governments and developers,” said Edging. “We really want to align the outcomes that we want to see in terms of housing production with the tools that we’re providing to them to make that the easiest thing to do.”
In Montana, coalition-building has also been critical to the success of recent reform efforts. Brittany Palmer, Executive Director of Front Step Community Land Trust, said the passage of the Montana Land Use and Planning Act, or MLUPA, in 2023, was a big step in building a bipartisan coalition. By being flexible and identifying overlapping interests, the coalition was able to bring together property rights and housing affordability advocates to require cities to plan for future growth as part of the first land use policy framework of its kind in the state.
“We didn’t necessarily need everybody to agree on everything,” said Palmer, “but we needed alignment on those big, high-impact reforms.”
Incentivizing Housing Production
Other states have chosen to use carrots rather than sticks to incentivize housing production. For example, Utah has developed new tax increment financing (TIF) tools for private investment in infrastructure tied to the production of affordable units, and has seen significant uptake.
“We have found that the sledgehammer approach to policy changes doesn’t often work in our state,” said Laura Hanson, Senior Advisor for Long-Range Planning for Utah Governor Spencer Cox. “We’ve had much more luck outlining the desired outcome we want to see, with some clear guidance, sometimes some incentives, and then letting cities decide how to meet that objective in a way that works for them.”
The state ended up having to place a cap on the number of TIF areas, as some county governments expressed concern about the negative impact on revenue. As an alternative funding mechanism, Utah created another program with $150 million in grants and $70 million in revolving loans set aside to fund system-level infrastructure improvements, such as roads, drinking water, or sewer projects.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in Connecticut have pursued an iterative path to enacting housing reforms after a veto by Democratic Governor Ned Lamont, according to Jason Rojas, the Majority Leader in the Connecticut House of Representatives and a key supporter of the legislation. His state eventually passed a large omnibus housing bill in 2025 that included requiring affordable housing plans from municipalities, reducing parking requirements, and removing administrative barriers for missing middle housing.
“Last year, we had a smorgasbord of laws that we passed in a large omnibus housing bill that we were able to get through,” said Rojas. “After it got vetoed last June, we were able to come back, work over the summer, and bring it back in November, and pass it. It has a lot more buy-in, which will hopefully help with implementation moving forward.”
Tracking Impact, and Balancing Housing Dynamics
The panelists also emphasized that getting reforms passed is only the first step of many, and discussed the various ways policymakers are tracking their impact.
For example, Hanson shared that Utah created an online housing dashboard that tracks metrics like new permits issued, corporate ownership, and the percentage of Utahns that are priced out. In the future, it will include additional data, such as the amount of time that passes between a complete development application and the issuance of a certificate of occupancy.
Edging said Oregon has also shifted its approach to tracking, going from evaluating if goals are met as part of intermittent long-term planning to tracking the ongoing production of units, affordable units, and fair housing outcomes.
“If we’re not making progress towards them, we intervene, we respond, we figure out what is going on and what is within the control of state and local governments to actually make progress towards those targets,” said Edging. “The goal here isn’t to hit it, the goal here is to actually take actions within our control.”
Whenever a state or local government proposes upzoning and urban infill redevelopment, communities often have concerns around gentrification and the displacement of existing residents.
For Palmer and her Community Land Trust, she sees it as necessary to advocate for both increased housing supply and decommodifying housing at the same time. “I personally don’t think we can just focus on building our way out of the housing crisis,” said Palmer. “We really need both.”
Edging agreed, adding that a large part of the conversation around targeted upzonings needs to be centered on understanding those dynamics and pushing for outcomes that are more equitable, because doing nothing is not going to get to that outcome.
“It’s important to recognize economic displacement as a function of scarcity that’s been created,” said Edging. “Thinking about that very strategically as a government is very important at the state and local levels.”