A long list in no particular order.
- Create so much regulatory overhead that developers have to finance projects for years prior to construction and do multiple revised estimates before ever bidding out the work.
- Create arbitrary guidelines with no definitive prescriptive path for completion by default.
- Create excessive risk premiums.
- Prevent dense housing from being built with ridiculously low floor area ratios.
- Require as much parking as you can.
- Add arbitrary regulatory cliffs and cost plateaus that favor specific niche types of construction but only under certain specific conditions.
- Create requirements for spurious community input sessions for the sake of saying you consulted the community on a project level basis about decisions the community should be making at a community level, not a project by project level.
- Allow vacant land and buildings in dense areas to sit unused without any penalty or time limits.
- Create vague non-specific requirements that allow government officials to interpret requirements in as many ways as possible to minimize the certainty a developer can have.
- Pretend that people own their land but then prevent them from building on half of it with setback requirements instead of using the right of way.
- Add as many development impact assessments and environmental oversight as you can for urban sites and don’t require any for greenfield developments outside of the city.
- Allow the community to modify or veto individual projects on specific sites instead of creating consistent and predictable rules for development with community input that all developments must follow.
- Eliminate all trades training and workshop classes from all educational curriculum.
- Make it difficult for homeowners to legally subdivide their property into smaller apartments.
- Create large minimum lot sizes and minimum frontage requirements.
- Prevent or make it difficult to add more buildings of different types to existing properties.
- Prevent or make it difficult to create mixed use buildings in any location.
- Allow financiers to speculate on vacant but fully functional properties.
- Add as many tariffs as possible on any and all construction materials.
- Make it illegal for any immigrants to do construction labor.
- Prevent proven technologies like helical piles from being used to build foundations.
- Create committees to review projects on a case by case basis and make recommendations to change project proposals.
- Make it as difficult and onerous as possible to create communal living space arrangements.
- Prevent all single room occupancy and group homes for everyone except seniors and incarcerated people.
- Don’t allow tiny homes.
- Don’t allow micro apartments.
- Don’t build any government housing.
- Allow landlords to sit on vacant apartments as long as they want. Definitely don’t require landlords who have been sitting on vacant apartments for over a year to lower the rental asking price at least $100 a month every month until someone rents the apartment.
- Charge as much as possible for permits as soon as possible and create as many permits as possible.
- Help homeowners out with way more financial forgiveness than apartment dwellers during difficult times.
- When you give money away, give as much money as possible to companies to solve problems instead of giving shelter directly to people to solve their personal problems.
- Require developers to pay for utility and right of way improvements that should be the responsibility of a municipality or municipal utility instead of allowing density that would enable the municipality to pay for appropriate maintenance.
- Allow developers to build very water and energy wasteful homes that are poorly insulated.
- Require expensive finish materials for all exterior facades.
- Prevent extensive overhangs that take water away from building facades to ensure that buildings wear out faster and require more maintenance.
- Definitely don’t do any sort of housing first programs.
