Zoning Ordinances and Urban Sprawl
D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray recently asked Congress for ways to relax the zoning regulations that restrict the maximum height of buildings in the nation’s capital. Zoning codes are powerful tools for shaping the look and feel of cities, and they can also determine if new development occurs in the city or on the fringe. In a new discussion paper, a team of experts—including RFF’s Virginia McConnell and Margaret Walls—examines the influence of zoning restrictions on development in urban fringe communities. They find that zoning requirements of a 2-acre minimum lot sizeencourage sprawl by keeping “the newly developing region in low-density development,” whereas larger lot size requirements result in more “contained development.”
Cap-and-Trade Revenue in California
Last week, the California Assembly passed a bill that regulates how the state can use revenue from auctioning emissions allowances under its impending cap-and-trade system. RFF Senior Fellow Dallas Burtraw, who has been working with California on the design of the cap-and-trade program, recently investigated the potential uses of such revenue. In two resulting discussion papers, Burtraw and his coauthors provide an overview of the opportunities and challenges associated with this new revenue, and explain how the allowance value can best benefit the state’s electricity ratepayers. In Burtraw’s recent testimony to the Assembly, he highlighted that today’s decisions on revenue use will help determine how California can meet its climate goals in the future.
Fire Suppression and Land Development
Wildfire season got off to a brutal start this year. New Mexico is currently battling the largest fire in the state’s history, while other major conflagrations sear parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, and Utah. Efforts by federal and state governments to suppress fires may actually lead to more development in fire-prone areas, according to RFF Fellows Sheila Olmstead and Carolyn Kousky. Their research suggests that “development is greater on lands benefiting from federal suppression efforts, all else equal,” because the efforts are paid for by taxpayers, not the homeowners located in those areas.
