Local Housing Discretion and the Affordability Override

ABSTRACT The crucial issue in housing policy is the appropriate degree of community discretion over housing development. I develop an improved account of the normative value of community discretion, building on the literature on gentrification. This shows that community discretion does have genuine value. But more community discretion tends to lead to higher housing prices, which are themselves a significant cause of gentrification and other harms. We need policies that appropriately reflect this tension. Land value taxation is one good approach; I suggest that a novel policy, the ‘affordability override’, is even better.