Looking Back to See Forward: Viable Land Use Policies for the ‘New Normal’ (CM | 2.0)

Join ULI-NNJ and economist Claude Gruen, the author of New Urban Development: Looking Back to See Forward, recently published by Rutgers University Press, for a luncheon discussion of the unintended economic consequences of land use regulatory and zoning constraints on housing production.

In New Urban Development, Mr. Gruen makes the connection between the artificial restrictions on housing supply, imposed by local zoning ordinances since the 1970s, and the resultant escalation of housing prices that eventually led to the mortgage crisis and financial meltdown of 2007. In New Urban Development, he reviews what history and the new economic realities suggest about the changes needed to land use law and regulation at the federal, state, and most importantly, local level, and concludes with a comprehensive proposal of thirteen discrete new policies for the “New Normal.” These recommendations include planning and zoning for development above that likely to be required by demand growth, mandating minimum densities in urban areas, changes to affordable housing policy to take the burden of low- and moderate-income housing off of the backs of market-rate housing developers, and the creation of a private alternative to public urban redevelopment.

ULI-NNJ invites you to think outside the box— the policy recommendations contained in New Urban Redevelopment may seem radical at first, but, in the words of President Obama’s former chief of staff, “A crisis is too good an opportunity to miss.” Mr. Gruen’s presentation will be followed by a response panel of New Jersey’s top land use legal practitioners and planners. All attendees will receive a copy of New Urban Development.

Visit: http://nnj.uli.org