Who Killed the Starter Home?

In this episode, Justin Hollander, professor of urban & environmental policy and planning at Tufts University, joins us — and yes, he's also planned a new town on Mars, underground bike tunnels included.

Back on Earth, He shares that planners are usually taught to contain and densify existing places and by any means block expansion. The reality is that economic forces make development ooze out anyway, and it ends up as a sprawling suburbs that delivers somewhat affordable homes while making no real livable places. Justin makes the case that if we acknowledge this reality, we can actually plan new towns that are walkable, transit-friendly, and have community structure that defines a real place people would enjoy and still have starter homes. Maybe we don't need to move to Mars to bike to school after all.

In this episode, research attorney with YIMBY Law Jack Farrell came back to the podcast to walk us through the newly passed Road to Housing Act.

This sprawling, three hundred eighty-one-page bill is made up of small technical fixes. For Jack, that's a good sign: the sheer number of granular changes suggests that the authors understand how housing programs work on the ground.

We cover the highlights: grant programs that now prioritize ADUs, missing middle housing, and single-stair reform; a fix that makes manufactured homes cheaper to build; the unlocking of Community Development Block Grant funds for affordable housing; and a change that cuts duplicate inspections for properties using multiple federal funding sources. We also dig into the bill's attempt to cap how many single-family homes big institutional investors can own — and why the data suggests Wall Street landlords aren't the main cause of high home prices. And, for a complete fun fact — there is a provision inside a housing bill that has nothing to do with housing: a ban on the U.S. ever creating its own central bank digital currency.         

For decades, local zoning rules kept towns like Santa Barbara completely stuck, resulting in virtually zero new housing production. Then, the state of California stepped in.

It is a common story of high-demand towns using zoning to keep housing supply from meeting demand with low- and moderate-income families being pushed out.

In this episode, New Jersey's preeminent housing planner Creigh Rahenkamp does a deep dive on our state's half-century attempt to overcome exclusionary zoning. After hearing my recent conversation with Jason Sorens, whose research found no measurable increase in overall housing production, Creigh was furious at what he saw as a mischaracterization of the Mount Laurel doctrine.

As we dig in, however, something interesting emerges: the two of them agree on far more than it first appears. Both agree that Mount Laurel has increased the number of deed-restricted affordable units, but that New Jersey is nowhere near building enough homes compared to real demand. And both point to the same culprit for why: local rules continue to exclude, and complex requirements and approvals run up against economic constraints, making projects impossible.

Where they split is on what the Mount Laurel doctrine is. Sorens evaluates it as a housing production program. Rahenkamp insists it was never that — it's a rezoning doctrine, with deed-restricted units as the mechanism to capture some of the value that zoning had trapped, for the benefit of low- and moderate-income residents.

You have probably heard of the "Yes In My Back Yard" movement, but you may be less familiar with YIMBY Law — a nonprofit organization that helps research policy solutions, offer legal support, and streamline the arbitrary and delaying tactics stalling new home construction.

In this episode, research attorney with YIMBY law, Jack Farrell joins us to describe the housing doctrines in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. He discusses why simply making "local housing plans" is great in theory, but often fails in practice without clear, enforceable rules. From California's Permit Streamlining Act to battles over home rule in Colorado, Jack walks us through how enforcing clear standards and timelines along with smart incentives can bring predictability back to the housing approval process.

Finally, Jack shares a sobering perspective from his early days as a public interest attorney: the direct, devastating link between housing scarcity and domestic violence.

Here is the link to our YIMBY Law project support form: https://www.yimbylaw.org/submit-a-project 

Information for anyone interested in YIMBY Action chapters: https://yimbyaction.org/get-involved/what-is-a-chapter/ 

"Design is the easy part. I get to sit in my secret magic studio, come up with a great design, and draw it up. I can do that all day long. But getting that design to work with the budget, the zoning, the neighbors, and the construction—that’s the hard part." According to Christopher Calott, Chair and Program Founder of the Master of Real Estate Development + Design Program at UC Berkeley.

In this episode, we discuss how designers can stop complaining from the sidelines and actually regain control of their vision by claiming their seat at the developer's table. When value engineering ruins a project, it’s because we aren't the ones making the final decisions.

Chris breaks down the myth of the "greedy developer," the reality of managing financial risk, and how "building a return on design" can physically and socially elevate an entire neighborhood. We also tackle the harsh reality of the modern housing market: the burdensome "Drive to Value" that forces entry-level homebuyers to make a bargain with the devil just to secure a starter home.

"If you try to keep anything from changing in the buildings, then what has to change is the people," shared Andrew Burleson, Board Chair of Strong Towns, as he walked me through the way out-of-proportion regulations that lead to our analysis-paralysis.

Are we sure that a simple backyard cottage or a neighborhood triplex need to face a multi-year legal gridlock as if it's an airport or a nuclear power plant? In this episode, we dive deep into Denver’s promising new "Unlocking Housing Choices" initiative to see what a realistic blueprint for the missing middle could look like. With Andrew's unique background spanning architecture, urban planning, and tech, we also explore a wild but practical idea: could an interactive game help towns and residents get more comfortable with local choices and trade-offs?

As someone who advocates for affordable housing, I am having a hard time processing this data—but it is officially in, and it’s a massive reality check.

Economist Jason Sorens has done extensive modeling on New Jersey’s housing landscape and found that Mount Laurel and inclusionary zoning mandates have had a 0% net impact on increasing overall housing supply or lowering housing costs. While the policy successfully produces a small number of deed-restricted units, it also creates an overwhelming lottery system and a devastating consequence for the middle of the market. When developers have to cross-subsidize the below-market units, the middle is financially impossible. The only projects that survive the math are either hyper-luxury developments with a small inclusionary component or projects that are in some form publicly funded.

    So, what do we do next?

In this episode, we dive into solutions for moving past ineffective mandates to unlock naturally occurring, truly affordable home development. Reduced minimum lot sizes for starter home subdivisions, legalized "by-right" infill density, pre-approved architectural plans, private inspections, and eliminated parking minimums are all being tested successfully around the country. It’s time to talk about how these diverse typologies can count toward the noble goal of creating realistic opportunities to build homes for the lower and middle-income strata of our communities.

When Erick and Carolina were recent architecture grads navigating a long-distance relationship between Houston and McAllen, Texas, Erick dropped a question that would completely rewrite their futures: "Will You Design a House with Me?"

While standard relationship advice warns against co-managing massive financial and design projects, this single speculative starter home on Orange Avenue became the literal blueprint for their marriage, their family, and their entire business. Today, as the founders of the 10-person firm Orange Made Architecture, Erick and Carolina join the podcast to reflect on how a modest starter home didn't just launch their careers—it ignited a modern design movement and catalyzed a profound community transformation in their Rio Grande Valley town.

Our latest episode was recorded live at the NJ Planning and Redevelopment Conference with Randi Moore, CEO of the Affordable Housing Alliance. We dove into a frustrating paradox: under normal circumstances the standard funding, rigid compliance rules, and hyper-fragmented municipal zoning completely freeze the pipeline for modest starter homes. But when a catastrophe strikes—like Hurricane Sandy—emergency recovery funds with more flexible rules suddenly act as a regulatory bypass cutting through the red tape.

Featuring plenty of audience participation that we tried our best to include in the recording, we brainstormed how to bring forward-thinking, resilient, and community-centered housing to our neighborhoods today—without waiting for disaster funding