
Former Hartford official Sara Bronin’s new book on the role zoning plays in American life hit the shelves last week, adding to the growing debate over land-use regulation and its effects on housing prices, economic opportunity and racial segregation. Courtesy photo
Sara Bronin has personally witnessed the extremes when it comes to how zoning regulations shape the landscapes where people live and work.
A native of Houston, America’s largest city without formal zoning regulations, Bronin saw the effects of unregulated development on the neighborhood where she grew up.
“Looking across the street is a gas station, a self-storage facility, a nightclub and a large strip mall surrounded by a giant parking lot,” Bronin said. “I wouldn’t say those kinds of uses are fulfilling for a child growing up there today.”
In her professional career in Connecticut, Bronin taught law at University of Connecticut and served as Hartford Planning Board chair for seven years in a state where the vast majority of land is zoned for single-family homes.
The Yale-educated architect finds a middle ground between the free market latitude of Houston and restrictive regulation of the Nutmeg State in her new book, “Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes Our World,” released Oct. 1 by W.W. Norton & Co.
“For me, zoning has always been this fascinating but understudied aspect of law that affects virtually every American, yet few people actually recognize zoning’s power or understand how it works,” Bronin said in a phone call after returning from the first leg of her book tour in Charlottesville, Virginia last week.
Bronin’s book hits the shelves amid a growing national debate on how zoning can perpetuate inequality and contribute to higher housing costs. In 2021, California legislators enacted a law that allowed homeowners to subdivide single-family lots for up to four homes, subject to a 1,200-square-foot lot minimum. In April, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled the law unconstitutional, placing its future in doubt.
But eliminating single-family zoning is only one ingredient in the housing production recipe, Bronin said, along with increases in maximum building height and density. One of the most successful zoning reforms for housing production has been legalization of accessory dwelling units, or backyard cottages, in single-family zones, Bronin said, including a California law that expands accessory dwelling unit approvals effective Jan. 1.
Boston Report Spurs Transit-Oriented Zoning
As Hartford’s Planning Board chair from 2013 to 2020, Bronin successfully pushed for an overhaul of the city’s zoning code designed to encourage sustainability, economic growth, arts and culture and multi-modal transportation networks.
Bronin’s influence now is being felt in Boston during its first city-wide rezoning process since the 1960s.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu tapped Bronin as a consultant to review the city’s zoning code with the goal of simplifying and modernizing the over 3,700-page document. In a 2023 report, Bronin recommended rezoning areas near public transit stops for higher-density development to encourage multifamily housing production.
The concepts are already being implemented through Boston’s “Squares + Streets” initiative, which this spring rezoned one of the city’s historically disinvested neighborhoods for more by-right housing approvals, and is expected to issue recommendations on 16 other neighborhood districts.
A professor of architecture and planning at Cornell University, Bronin is making the rounds of East Coast college towns this fall promoting the book. She’s tentatively scheduled to address the “Desegregate Connecticut” housing advocacy group in December.
Bronin calls upon “good and bad examples” of zoning policies in cities including Las Vegas, Tucson, Baltimore and Delray Beach, Florida. Baltimore successfully added mixed-use zoning to encourage redevelopment of a former industrial district, she said.
“In general, the book advocates for a broader mix of uses rather than what we too often see, which is single-family zoning,” Bronin said.