Overview

Across the country, rising housing costs have left millions struggling to find housing they can afford. States attempting to expand the supply of housing are passing ambitious legislative reforms to remove barriers to development and incentivize production. Yet local implementation challenges — such as complex permitting and review processes, limited staff capacity, and outdated, confusing zoning rules — often slow or prevent those reforms from translating into new homes.

The GPL’s housing production work focuses on bridging the gap between policy and on-the-ground results. It addresses four main barriers that slow reform implementation at the local level:

• Lengthy, complex, and risk-averse permitting and proposal review processes that grind development to a halt
• Challenging zoning and land use regulations, and the administrative hurdles of rewriting them
• High entry costs and knowledge gaps for developers that disincentivize investment
  
• Lack of real-time, actionable housing supply data and dashboards to understand it

Our State Housing Production Accelerator works with state governments to support the implementation of housing production reforms by building their capacity and setting up systems to:

• Offer direct technical assistance and support to local governments
• Disseminate tools and templates to scale and spread impactful practices
• Facilitate peer-to-peer learning and coaching opportunities
• Provide measurement and evaluation frameworks
• Incorporate insights into future housing policy priorities