YIMBY News for 3/24

[Eric Budd]

The Myth of ‘More is More’ Keeps Canada Trapped in a Housing Crisis

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 56.06. affordable, affordable housing, apartment, condo, construction, density, development, house, housing, housing crisis, income, land-use, project, public space, real estate, rent, supply, transit-oriented, urban, zoning

Recently-developed condos in the Humber Bay Shores area in Etobicoke, Toronto. (Photo by Justin Ziadeh / Unsplash) The Canadian housing landscape over the last decade has been defined by an escalating crisis of affordability, a severe shortage of non-market housing and the rapid financialization of residential real estate. Between 2024 and 2026, housing policy in Canada has been dominated by aggressive supply-side targets, billions in federal loan guarantees for private developers and the revival of historical precedents such as the standardized housing design catalogue. Despite the unpreceden

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Colorado is losing 1 affordable housing unit for every 2 it builds. But the state keeps rejecting efforts to stop the bleeding.

Colorado Sun

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KEYWORD SCORE: 55.53. affordable, affordable housing, apartment, construction, development, gentrification, homeowner, house, housing, housing cost, income, market-rate, preservation, project, rent, renter, single-family, supply, walk, zoning

When the apartment building at 1371 Xenia St. went up for sale in 2024, the East Colfax Community Collective feared what might come next. Built in 1961, the Denver rental property was falling apart, its tenants facing winters without heat, even as their rent kept going up. The wrong buyer could mean further neglect, or worse: The people living there could be priced out entirely. Major investments along East Colfax threaten to accelerate gentrification in a neighborhood where 1 in 4 households live in poverty. The nonprofit began to cobble together financing to buy the building, repair it and k

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Untangling Land Titles To Help Flood Survivors Access Disaster Aid

Next City

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KEYWORD SCORE: 34.11. downtown, homeowner, house, housing, housing stock, income, occupancy, project, real estate, rent, urban

*This story was produced as part of Next City’s joint **Equitable Cities Reporting Fellowship for Rural-Urban Issues** with **Kentucky’s **CivicLex* *.* When floodwaters rushed through their rural Clay County property in February 2025, the Salmons family didn’t apply for federal disaster aid. The storm destroyed their farm equipment and the bridge to their home, but they knew others were hurting more. “So many people lost their lives, lost their whole homes. It didn’t get in our house. It wouldn’t have been right to file,” Sharon Salmons says. “We’re too old to farm now anyway.” But she, along

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Should single-family construction be allowed in apartment zones? City Council is exploring it

Denverite

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KEYWORD SCORE: 31.50. apartment, condo, construction, density, development, higher-density, homeowner, housing, project, rent, single-family, zone, zoning

Should people be allowed to build single-family homes in dense neighborhoods? That’s the question that Denver City Council members started discussing this week. A proposed new policy could stop property owners from building low-density homes in areas where the city wants to see condos, duplexes and apartments. “Why have we upzoned areas for duplex and greater, but we still have single unit as an allowed use?” said Councilmember Kevin Flynn, who is working with Councilmember Sarah Parady to explore the idea. Since 2019, about 7% of the city’s new single-unit homes were built on land that allowe

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It Takes More Than Zoning Reform to Get More Housing

Governing

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KEYWORD SCORE: 27.78. construction, development, housing, parking, project, rent, supply, urban, zone, zoning

Ask almost any state legislator or city council member about housing supply today, and zoning reform is likely to be one of the first things they mention. In just the past five years, states and localities have adopted hundreds of changes to their land use codes, legalizing accessory dwelling units (ADUs), loosening parking requirements, allowing duplexes in single‑family zones and speeding up permitting. The pace of change is remarkable. But momentum and results are not the same thing. I led the research behind the National Association of Home Builders’ (NAHB) new zoning reform tracker and in

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Three More Takeaways from a Pivotal Sound Transit Board Retreat

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 25.23. affordable, construction, house, income, project, rent, transportation, urban

[image: Three More Takeaways from a Pivotal Sound Transit Board Retreat] Last week's Sound Transit board retreat will likely stand out in history for the moment that it became clear that bringing light rail to Ballard will be much tougher than originally anticipated, thanks to a significant long-term funding gap. The three different approaches put in front of the board all falling short of getting to Market Street, Ballard's key east-west artery, truncating the line at the Seattle Center or Smith Cove. To differing degrees, each approach entails pushing multiple voter-approved projects farther

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Sunday Video: The Wonky Magic of Urban Growth Boundaries

The Urbanist

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KEYWORD SCORE: 24.13. affordable, affordable housing, comprehensive plan, development, growth, housing, income, urban, zoning

[image: Sunday Video: The Wonky Magic of Urban Growth Boundaries] In his most recent video, CityNerd's Ray Delahanty dives into the wonky magic of urban growth boundaries. Washington and Oregon are some of the states to most embrace urban growth boundaries, with statewide laws implementing them in the 1990s. Delahanty, however, dives into the case study of Lexington, Kentucky, which also was an early adopter of an urban growth boundary almost 70 years ago. These boundaries help contain suburban development sprawling out into the hinterlands and protect farmland, forests, and other natural reso

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Why This State Is Fighting To Get Its First ‘Active Transportation Plan’

Streetsblog Net

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KEYWORD SCORE: 21.89. complete street, development, multimodal, project, rent, transportation, urban, walk

Missourians are fighting to get their state its first-ever plan to support the needs of people outside cars — and shining a light on an overlooked resource that’s missing or badly out of date in other states, too. Advocates at Missourians for Responsible Transportation are in the final days of a campaign to get the Missouri Department of Transportation — or MoDOT, as it’s locally known — to adopt a “statewide active transportation plan,” which proponents say is among the most critical missing puzzle pieces necessary to solve the state’s traffic violence crisis and reap the broader benefits of

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Is the Center Still Alive in Big-City Politics?

Governing

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KEYWORD SCORE: 19.56. affordable, downtown, housing, rent, renter, urban

The Irish poet William Butler Yeats proclaimed rather famously more than a century ago that “the center cannot hold.” He was referring to politics as well as culture. It isn’t always an accurate complaint about modern political life, but you can’t help applying it to urban politics in America in the 21st century. Most recently, it has been applied to New York City, where socialist upstart Zohran Mamdani won a stunning mayoral victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a rival with decades of experience in government and a man widely perceived as a candidate of the political center even if he has g

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