Preserving Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing

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Most of the United States is now in an affordable housing crisis. While zoning reform to loosen up housing supply is badly needed, it is not enough. Given the slow rate at which the U.S. housing stock grows, we may not be able to narrow the affordability gap without significantly expanding our efforts to preserve the existing stock of relatively affordable housing.

In many communities, smaller, older single-family homes are the largest source of naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH) — unsubsidized privately owned residences that are affordable to low- or moderate-income households. While it would be nice if these existing older homes would remain at their current levels of affordability without intervention, that often does not happen. Some of them are lost every year due to damage or destruction, and there is not much local government can (or should) do to avoid that. However, others are lost through replacement by newer housing, often at bigger sizes or higher densities.

This issue of Zoning Practice addresses how local governments can use zoning to preserve the existing supply of affordable housing. It briefly summarizes housing market conditions that illustrate the importance of NOAH and explains potential precedents for NOAH preservation regulations before presenting a range of potential zoning strategies that communities could use to slow the loss of older, modest homes.

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