Communities across the country are confronting housing challenges that feel urgent, complex, and sometimes overwhelming. Through our work with dozens of municipalities and regions, we’ve observed that communities typically progress through three phases as they move from recognizing a housing problem to action.
Phase 1: Understanding the problem
The first phase is what we sometimes call “admiring the problem.” Before a community can act, it needs to understand what it’s dealing with. How many housing units are missing? What types are in short supply? Who is being priced out, and where is demand going unmet? This is the diagnostic stage, and it’s where a housing needs assessment or housing production plan becomes essential. We’ve led this kind of work in communities of every size, from Stowe, Vermont, where just one-third of homes are owner-occupied, to the Downtown Syracuse market study, to Honolulu’s citywide housing plan. In Indiana’s Michiana region, a regional housing study helped three counties understand shared challenges. In Muskogee, Oklahoma, the study gave a mid-sized city its first comprehensive look at housing conditions and demand. A good assessment doesn’t just confirm what people suspect. It puts real numbers behind housing preferences, quantifies the shortage, and builds the shared understanding that makes the next steps possible.
Phase 2: Updating the regulations
Once a community understands its housing gaps, the next question is: are the rules getting in the way? In many places, zoning codes written decades ago effectively prohibit the kinds of housing that are most needed today. Phase two is about clearing the blockers from outdated codes and creating a regulatory environment where the market can respond to demand. In Lynn, the city council unanimously passed a comprehensive zoning rewrite replacing code that dated to 1925.
Regulatory reform doesn’t always mean a wholesale rewrite. Targeted updates, like the mixed-use zoning support we provided in Natick or the mixed-use district ordinance we authored in Dayton, can unlock specific corridors or districts for development. Sometimes, simply bringing a code into compliance, as we did for Dedham, Malden, and Sherborn, is enough to send a signal to the market. In many communities, removing regulatory barriers is the single most effective way to increase housing supply.
Phase 3: Financing and incentivizing production
If the market doesn’t responds on its own after regulatory updates, fixing the zoning isn’t enough to produce the housing that’s needed. That’s when communities enter the third phase: actively financing or incentivizing housing production. This can take many forms. In Kenton County, Kentucky, we’re translating a regional housing study into income-aligned implementation strategies and an action plan, such as a regionwide Catalytic Fund for housing investments. Northern Kentucky’s “Home for All” initiative became a model of regional collaboration, pairing data with coordinated strategies across multiple jurisdictions. The tools at this stage include tax abatement, tax increment financing, bond programs, infrastructure investments, land banking, and direct subsidies. In Indiana, our regional housing study contributed to a $20 million Lilly Endowment grant for affordable housing in the South Bend-Elkhart region. In Rockland, Maine (population 7,000) voters approved a $10M bond to support housing production after their rezoning efforts were not resulting in the level of housing production desired. As we’ve written about in our analysis of housing and municipal finance, the fiscal case for investing in housing production is often stronger than communities expect.
What phase is your community in?
Recognizing which phase you’re in helps prioritize action. If you haven’t yet studied your housing market, start there. If you’ve done the research but your zoning code still blocks the housing you need, focus on regulatory reform. And if you’ve done both and production still lags, it might be time to talk about public investment. No matter where your community falls, the path forward starts with the right information and a clear-eyed view of what’s working and what isn’t. Reach out if you’d like to talk about where your community is and what comes next.
