Session Recap

Housing Committee

79th CSG West Annual Meeting
Salt Lake City, Utah

Introduction

Every Western state is grappling with the same challenge: population growth and the need for additional housing continue to climb while housing production has not kept pace, resulting in an estimated supply gap of 3 to 5 million homes. CSG West’s Housing Committee opened its Annual Meeting programming with a full afternoon dedicated to unpacking that gap. Discussions ranged from consumer-level data on who is renting and buying—and why—to local zoning fights that determine whether new supply gets built, and state-level reforms, such as Montana’s Land Use Planning Act (LUPA), that are starting to bend the cost curve.

Co-chaired by Hawaii Senator Troy Hashimoto and Montana Senator Forrest Mandeville, the session brought together voices from across the housing policy ecosystem, alongside committee co-chair Senator Mandeville’s own account of shepherding Montana’s landmark LUPA legislation into law. Each speaker’s presentation reached a similar conclusion: this is fundamentally a supply problem; most of the levers to fix it sit with local governments; and states increasingly have both the tools and the political will to intervene.

Key Takeaways

1. Housing Affordability is Now a Long-Term Structural Challenge Reshaping Homeownership

Zillow’s data painted a stark before-and-after picture. The average age of a first-time homebuyer is now 40, up from the late twenties to early thirties a decade ago, and the median renter is now 41. Together, these figures suggest that renting is no longer a transitional phase for young households, but a durable and necessary long-term choice.

Since 2020, home prices are up 50% and mortgage payments are up 85.4%, while incomes have grown only 32.5% over the same period. Affordability, not preference or availability, is now the dominant factor in the rent-versus-buy decision: 93% of consumers cite budget as their top concern, and 69% say they cannot currently afford to leave their rental.

Insurance is becoming a barrier: Homeowners insurance has emerged as an acute affordability pressure point in the West. Specifically, 29% of sellers reported a deal falling through because a buyer couldn’t obtain coverage; a trend tied closely to wildfire risk.

Housing markets are local: The buy-versus-rent breakeven point varies enormously by market. Buying pays off in fewer than 6 years in Salt Lake City, Phoenix, and Las Vegas, but takes almost 17 years in Portland and nearly 20 years in Seattle. These differences suggest state and local strategies need to be market-specific, not one-size-fits-all.

*Zillow’s John Baumer discusses trends in homeownership.*

2. Local Zoning and Land Use Authority Remains the Single Biggest Barrier to New Supply

Outdated local zoning, rather than financing or demand, has often been identified as the primary obstacle to building enough homes. Roughly 70% of residential land in major U.S. metro areas is restricted to single-family detached housing, effectively outlawing the “missing middle”—duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, and townhomes—that was once legal in most communities.

More supply, slower rent growth: The evidence for reducing supply barriers is compelling: Minneapolis grew its housing stock 12% between 2017 and 2022 while area rents rose just 1%. Over the same period, the rest of Minnesota added only 4% to its housing stock, while rents rose 14%.

Regulatory barriers add up: Beyond zoning itself, excessive parking minimums—which add an estimated $50,000–$100,000 per unit, according to a UCLA study—along with slow and unpredictable permitting timelines (18 months to two years in Salt Lake City alone) and a patchwork of local codes (Utah has roughly 180 separate municipal zoning codes) all compound the problem and tend to squeeze out small local builders in favor of larger developers with the staff to navigate the complexity.

A common reform agenda: Speakers converged on a common set of reforms: legalize accessory dwelling units (ADU) and duplexes by right; scale back parking requirements; allow missing-middle housing in residential and commercial zones; and make permitting timelines more predictable.

3. Montana’s Land Use Planning Act Offers a Statewide Reform Case Study

Senator Mandeville walked the committee through Montana’s 2023 Land Use Planning Act (SB 382), which housing policy observers have dubbed the “Montana miracle.” The law consolidated outdated zoning, subdivision, and growth-policy statutes for cities of 5,000 or more residents and counties of 70,000 or more; required housing needs assessments tied to land use plans; front-loaded public input into the planning stage rather than project-by-project review; and gave cities a menu of 14 reform options. Several, including by-right approvals for duplexes and ADUs, were ultimately made mandatory.

Early results are already visible. Statewide rents are down roughly $70 year over year, Bozeman’s median single-family home price is down 6.7%, and the City of Helena is reducing its development review timeline from 45 days to 21. The law also survived a challenge before the Montana Supreme Court, aided by its front-loaded public participation process.

Broad coalitions can make major reforms possible. The coalition supporting LUPA spanned the League of Cities and Towns, environmental groups, realtors, and builders, with divisions emerging more along generational lines than partisan ones.

Compromise was essential to passage. Senator Mandeville’s central lesson for other states: “Take what you can get.” Counties were dropped from the bill’s scope when the zoning lift proved politically infeasible, while provisions such as a tiny-home carve-out were added to hold the coalition together. Communication, feedback and negotiation proved integral to the legislation’s passage.

Implementation requires local capacity. Implementation costs for cities have ranged from $100,000 to more than $1 million, depending on how up to date their existing planning documents were. This can present a significant capacity constraint, particularly for smaller jurisdictions. Montana has partly addressed this challenge through state grants.

*Committee Co-Chair Senator Forrest Mandeville explains key processes under Montana’s 2023 Land Use Planning Act.*

4. Policy Design, Messaging, and Implementation Must All Work Together

A national overview reinforced a point that ran through the entire session: passing housing legislation is only the first step. States are increasingly embedding implementation into the legislation itself through technical assistance, sample codes, or funding incentives. California’s approach also includes stronger accountability mechanisms, up to and including state lawsuits against noncompliant jurisdictions.

Messaging matters: Messaging research from the Welcoming Neighbors Network and allied organizations suggest the most effective pro-housing communication is to meet people where they are, avoids planning jargon, and emphasizes concrete, personal impacts. One example cited during the session framed local housing supply in terms of whether residents’ grandchildren can afford to remain in the community.

Bipartisan momentum continues: Over half of U.S. states passed housing legislation in 2025, and the issue continues to draw bipartisan action. North Carolina’s new statewide parking reform bill, signed the day before the session, was cited as the most recent example.

A balanced housing ecosystem: Resource experts emphasized that market-rate supply and subsidized housing are complements, not competitors. A “healthy ecosystem,” they said, requires both, along with demand-side assistance for low-income households.

5. Financing and Interest Rates Remain the Elephant in the Room

Even as speakers focused heavily on zoning and permitting, legislators in the room repeatedly pushed the conversation back to financing. Questions surfaced throughout the session about whether current mortgage rates represent a “new normal” rather than a temporary spike, whether down payment assistance programs (including FHA 203(k)-style rehab financing) could be better paired with state first-time homebuyer grants, and how land banking and institutional and vacant-lot ownership affect the accuracy of inventory data.

The discussion made clear that financing warrants greater attention. One theme remained consistent throughout the session: land use reform alone will not solve affordability if the cost of capital continues to rise. During Day 2 of the Housing Committee session, an expert from the Center for Public Enterprise examined an approach using revolving loan to help increase housing supply. The session also took a deeper look at land use flexibility under high-interest rate conditions, providing a natural continuation of this conversation.

*Tim Murphy, Director of Infrastructure – Housing at Arnold Ventures, converses with Liz Sidor, Housing Program Manager at the Center for Public Enterprise*.

Looking Ahead

Several key questions raised during the session carried into Day 2 of the Housing Committee’s programming and into ongoing legislative work across the West. Pew Charitable Trusts previewed a comparative look at how flexible and rigid land use frameworks perform under today’s high-interest rate environment, a direct response to the financing questions raised.

Montana’s own implementation work is not finished. Senator Mandeville flagged interagency permitting friction around Department of Environmental Quality wastewater review and water rights as the next barrier to tackle. He also noted that some of LUPA’s provisions carry expiration dates, which the legislature will need to revisit.

For legislators considering similar reforms, Ivory Innovations offered a concrete next step: its Ivory Prize nomination window opens in September, and its full research database of proven housing policy interventions spanning zoning reform, finance, and construction is publicly available as a resource for states looking to adapt what has worked elsewhere. Zillow, similarly, offered its ongoing research dashboards as a standing resource for legislators tracking market-specific trends.

Most fundamentally, the question of how state legislatures balance local land-use authority against the need for statewide housing production standards remains unresolved and will likely remain contested. Montana’s experience—consisting of a bipartisan coalition, a menu-based approach over broad mandates, and a willingness to compromise on scope to secure passage—offers one model. That said, resource expert speakers were candid that no single approach translates cleanly across every Western state’s political and geographic context. This is why hearing not just one or two states’ legislative and policy approaches, but from across 13 Western states, helps members learn what is working where and generate ideas as to what may work in their own states and districts.

Final Reflection

What distinguished this session was less any single data point than the consistency across very different voices. A national real estate platform, a state-based YIMBY advocacy group, philanthropic organizations, and a current state legislator all identified the same root cause: outdated local land use rules restricting the supply of homes that used to be legal to build. That convergence, paired with early but meaningful results from Montana, suggest Western states have moved from diagnosing the housing affordability crisis to testing and refining actual solutions. The committee’s Day 2 programming built on these discussions with solutions-based topics, including pre-approved building plans, financing and interest rates, and public-private partnerships.