Zoning for Votes: How Local Politicians Use Land-Use Regulations for Political Gain

• In Event: State and Local Policymaking

Abstract

Across many levels of governments, elected officials are often observed to engage in opportunistic behavior, such as targeted ‘pork-barrel’ spending in their districts, or increases in spending, transfers, or employment on election years. What about local policymakers? Local policymakers tend to be limited in their ability to manipulate spending or pass popular policies due to federalism-related budget constraints, the bond market, and state policy preemption. In the face of these constraints, I argue that local politicians in federalist systems use the tools at their disposal, particularly land-use regulations, treating zoning as pork. I show, using a dataset that identifies over 400,000 lot-level zoning changes in New York City and data on the timing of historic districts in over 200 cities and towns, that land-use changes occur disproportionately on municipal election years. I find that this effect is driven entirely by those with the strongest electoral incentives: politicians not facing a term limit and representing the most competitive districts, evidence of strategic behavior. While zoning changes follow a strong political budget cycle, permitting does not, suggesting these results are not spurious with changes in the economic business cycle, nor does city spending and hiring levels, consistent with fiscal constraint. Additionally, I identify the direction of land-use changes: those that reduce new density (downzonings) versus those that allow for more density (upzonings). I find that election cycle effects are much larger for downzonings, consistent with anti-density public opinion. Upzonings, on the other hand, show more muted election cycle effects, while approvals for upzonings submitted by private developers occur disproportionately on politicians’ final (term-limited) year in office. Together, these findings suggest politicians may strategically tune the direction of rezonings for political gain. These findings may help explain why so many cities have restricted new development in the face of a housing affordability crisis.

Author

• Adrian Conrad Pietrzak, Princeton University
  Presenting Author