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Peer reviewed2024Canton of Zurich, Switzerland

Making Housing Affordable? The Local Effects of Relaxing Land-Use Regulation

Büchler & Lutz

Main finding

Substantial upzonings increased housing over five to ten years, especially where prior zoning was binding and rents signaled strong demand.

About 9% more living space and housing units in upzoned areas after five to ten years

Most important limitation

Local quality-adjusted rents did not differ significantly from later-upzoned controls; effects may diffuse across the wider market, and the setting is one Swiss canton.

From the publication

Inspect the authors' figure directly

Figure from the paper

Figure 2 · Living space after upzoning

The strongest post-reform increases appear after roughly five years, especially for large upzonings.

Published three-panel event study comparing all treated, small-upzoning, and large-upzoning effects on living space with two estimators and confidence intervals.

Source: Büchler & Lutz (2024), Figure 2; PDF p. 8.

Read carefully: The outcome is living space, and local quality-adjusted rent differences were not statistically clear.

How this study is used

Claims this evidence supports

Strong evidenceA city cannot build homes it has made illegal.See the full evidence stack →Strong evidenceLegal on paper is not the same as buildable in practice.See the full evidence stack →

Policy connection

Solution guides informed by this study

01Make room for apartments, shops, and neighbors02Bring back the homes between a house and a high-rise03Let homeowners add a home04Stop forcing every home to buy parking05Put more homes where the connections already are06Set clear rules—and say yes on time

Reference

Büchler & Lutz (2024). “Making Housing Affordable? The Local Effects of Relaxing Land-Use Regulation.”

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