Why Housing Is Expensive (And How Zoning Fits In)

Affordability is at the heart of every community. It shapes who can live where, who can build what, and how our cities grow. Yet across the country, the cost of housing continues to climb,  driven by a mix of demand, scarcity, and complexity that affects everyone from renters to regional planners.

At UrbanForm, we think about this every day, not just as a policy question, but as a systems problem. And one of the most overlooked pieces of that system is zoning.

Why Housing Costs So Much

There isn’t one reason housing is expensive, there are many. But three forces consistently show up in every market:

1. Scarcity Simply put, there aren’t enough homes. Decades of underbuilding have left most regions short on housing of every type, from entry-level apartments to single-family homes. When supply doesn’t keep up with demand, prices rise.

   
   

2. Complexity Building new housing isn’t simple. Every project faces multiple layers of regulation, fees, and coordination between local agencies. Developers and architects spend significant time navigating these rules before a single wall goes up.

   
   

3. Time Time is money — especially in housing. The longer it takes to get clear answers or approvals, the higher the costs. Delays add financing risk, hold up materials, and stretch staff capacity thin.

   
   

Where Zoning Comes In

Zoning is meant to guide growth, but when it’s opaque or difficult to access, it can unintentionally slow the very progress it’s designed to manage. Before a project even begins, everyone involved, from the architect sketching a concept to the city planner reviewing a site, needs to answer the same fundamental question: 

“What can be built here?”

That answer is buried in thousands of pages of zoning code, maps, overlays, and special district rules. Finding it can take days, sometimes weeks. For smaller cities or teams, that’s time they don’t have.

Clarity Changes Everything

UrbanForm was built to make zoning clear, accessible, and actionable.

By translating complex zoning regulations into parcel-specific insights, UrbanForm helps cities, developers, and designers move faster and make better decisions  without the uncertainty that drives up costs.

When zoning information is transparent:

• Developers can assess feasibility in minutes, not days.

• Architects can design within constraints from the start.

• Cities can process applications faster and focus on the work that matters.

Each of those efficiencies helps reduce overall cost pressure in the system and creates space for more creative, affordable, and sustainable housing solutions.

Toward Smarter, More Affordable Housing

Fixing housing affordability isn’t about one solution, it’s about removing friction from every part of the process. Zoning clarity is a quiet but powerful lever in that work.

When rules are clear, collaboration improves.When information is instant, costs drop.And when data is shared, we can all build better — together.

UrbanForm delivers accurate zoning information, instantly, so the people who build our cities can focus on what matters most.