Like most of the Mountain West, Colorado experienced an explosion in housing prices during COVID-19. Housing affordability in the state went from bad to worse.

In response, the Colorado Legislature last year considered a major housing reform bill, championed by Gov. Jared Polis, that would have allowed smaller, multi-unit developments in single-family neighborhoods, and required larger cities to eliminate barriers to apartments near transit, amongst other reforms. It ultimately died in the state Senate.

Undeterred, Polis and state housing reformers are reviving many of these same reforms, and a few more, in a series of separate bills.

In a phone interview with Reason last week, Polis talked about his approach to housing affordability, why last year's omnibus reform bill failed, whether this year's bills will get over the finish line, and whether we should abolish zoning entirely.

Q: In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden briefly mentioned high housing costs. His proposals for bringing them down mostly included tax credits for homebuyers. What should be the federal role in housing affordability?

A: The federal piece is very limited. In Colorado, the biggest barrier to housing is simply the permitting associated with being allowed to build it and other costly government-imposed restrictions from the local and state levels. We're always happy to have any help federally, but fundamentally, the core of the issue is local and state.

I would add that the single biggest federal dimension is interest rates. To reduce interest rates, the federal government has several levers. One is monetary policy. One is proactive trade policy and free trade deals with more countries to reduce upward pressures on consumer costs. The third is establishing a bipartisan fiscal commission around the fiscal stability of the country. Because even sending that market signal that they're serious about fiscal reform will bring down interest rates. Whether they succeed or not is another story.

Obviously, we welcome any additional policies that on the edges help. But fundamentally, this is an issue of allowing more housing to be built near job centers and where people want to live.

moar

The problem with American politics is the tendency to take every good idea you can off the table before your opponent does - and then weld it to batshit crazy policies that people have to accept if they want housing reform.  

Both sides do this all the time. Regulatory capture and corporate personhood are some of the Right wing policies, and we all know the Lefts proclivities.  

This occurs because at core there have been practically no persons who have ever stood for office who weren't statists as a religious preference.