Housing costs in Rhode Island continue to explode, thanks in part to a lack of supply. One reason there isn’t enough housing: local zoning laws limit what can be built where.
For our series Zoned Out: How local zoning hurts efforts to solve Rhode Island’s decades-long housing shortage, The Public’s Radio’s Dave Fallon interviewed Brenda Clement, executive director of HousingWorks RI, a think tank focused on housing affordability. Clement spoke about the problems zoning laws can cause and what we might do about it.
This story is part of our series Zoned Out: How local zoning hurts efforts to solve Rhode Island’s decades-long housing shortage. Click here to see more stories from this series.
Interview Highlights
On the challenges of tackling a statewide housing shortage
Brenda Clement: Funding for housing comes largely, in Rhode Island at least, from the federal level and some from the state level. But what you build, where you build, and how you build are all controlled at the local level. And those [elements] are all controlled by oftentimes varying requirements and standards in every single one of the 39 cities and towns.
So those barriers or those challenges to planning growth and planning development are real in Rhode Island. And they are real in many parts of the country where zoning has become more of an exclusionary tool, rather than a good planning tool and an inclusionary tool to build housing of all income levels.
On the challenges of changing zoning policy over time
Clement: Interestingly, because zoning has really only been around for about a hundred-plus years or so in most communities — a lot of what we like in Rhode Island, a lot of what we hold up as great examples in Rhode Island, are not replicable under existing zoning ordinances.
a lot of walkable or dense neighborhoods, or transit-friendly neighborhoods that we talk about liking a lot, are just not easily replicable under existing laws.
Denser developments like a Pawtuxet Village or a Wickford Village, or even a Garden City or other areas around transit hubs and corridors are not easily replicable under existing zoning ordinances because of the changes that we’ve made to zoning over the years. A lot of that is true throughout New England, because zoning is very decentralized to the local communities — trying to plan across a region, or plan across communities, or along transit lines that might run through several communities, it becomes a big challenge.
On zoning restrictions that can be particularly problematic
Clement: About 87% of the state is zoned single-family. So again, as I said, a lot of what we like — and a lot of walkable or dense neighborhoods, or transit-friendly neighborhoods that we talk about liking a lot, are just not easily replicable under existing laws.
On how to get political leaders to focus more attention on the politically fraught issues around zoning
Clement: One out of three Rhode Islanders are needing housing, which means that every one of the communities in Rhode Island have people who are cost-burdened [by housing] — spending more than they can really afford.
If your constituents want to age in place or age in community, we need to be addressing these bigger challenges, like zoning and other issues at the local level as well, too. If you are trying to attract workers to your workforce, to your schools — and not only school teachers or firefighters, but school aides and cafeteria workers and people who are working in lower wage jobs in all of these fields that we know are the ones who struggle the most to keep a roof over their head.
