Moira O’Neill on Housing & Environmental Review
On this episode of Free Range, Mike Livermore speaks with Moira O’Neill, a Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia who also has a joint appointment at UVA Law. A specific area of her research is land use law and its relationship to housing affordability, integration, and environmental impacts in California. In this episode, O’Neill discusses the biggest challenges to building affordable, climate friendly housing and its incredible variability in how jurisdictions apply both state environmental review and their own law.
Episode is an appropriate teaching tool for but not limited to the following topics & courses: land use law, housing affordability, integration, climate change, equity, resilience
Discussion Questions
- How can land use regulations like zoning impact housing development and environmental goals like climate change mitigation? What trade-offs exist?
- What is the difference between discretionary and ministerial approval processes for housing development? How does this relate to environmental review requirements?
- Why might variability across jurisdictions in application of land use law matter for housing outcomes even when the law itself is similar?
- How do local land use politics manifest in development approval processes? When can this impede or facilitate desired housing growth?
- What are some arguments for and against allowing extensive neighborhood input and discretionary review in housing development processes? How should these be balanced?
- Why has California faced challenges in aligning land use regulations with state climate and housing affordability goals? What reforms could help address this misalignment?
- How might differences in local cultural attitudes or economic inequality influence land use outcomes across similar jurisdictions? What evidence supports this?
- Is extensive public process always beneficial for inclusive policymaking around land use and the built environment? What can exclude people?
- How could better data and transparency around housing approvals improve local and state policymaking on land use? What barriers exist?
- To what extent are California’s housing challenges a technical versus political problem when it comes to land use law and policy? Where should reform efforts focus?
- How do insights from land use scholarship in planning and law help inform analysis of the housing/climate change nexus? What connections seem salient?
- What did you learn from this discussion about local control and state intervention in land use policy that contradicts or aligns with your prior assumptions?
Additional Readings
- M. Nolan Gray, “How Californians Are Weaponizing Environmental Law,” The Atlantic (Mar. 12, 2021).
- Conor Dougherty, “Twilight of the NIMBY,” The New York Times (June. 5, 2022).
- Moira O’Neill et al., Sustainable Communities or the next Urban Renewal?, 47 Ecology L.Q. 1061 (2020).
- Opportunity Starts At Home. “Housing Policy is Environmental Policy: The Complementary Aims of Fair Housing and Environmental Justice.”
- Dan Walters, “How environmental law is misused to stop housing,” CalMatters (Jan. 8, 2023).
- Adriana Rezal, “Here’s why Austin and Seattle are building way more housing than San Francisco,” San Francisco Chronicle (Aug. 5, 2022).
- Janet Smith-Heimer & Jessica Hitchcock, CEQA and housing production: 2018 survey of California cities and counties, 21 Envt’l Practice 69-84 (2019).
- Local Housing Solutions. “Streamlined Environmental Review Processes.”
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