Inclusionary Housing in International Perspective: Affordable Housing, Social Inclusion, and Land Value Recapture

Inclusionary housing, also broadly known in the United States as inclusionary zoning, is a means of using the planning system to create affordable housing and foster social inclusion by capturing resources created through the marketplace. Programs, regulations, and laws prompt private developers to incorporate affordable housing on-site, build it elsewhere, or contribute money or land for the production of social or affordable housing by others. Inclusionary Housing in International Perspective examines inclusionary housing programs in-depth in seven countries (Canada, England, France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the United States) and reports on experiences in others, including Australia, Colombia, India, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, and South Africa, Inclusionary housing originated in the U.S in the early 1970s, and gradually spread to Canada, western Europe, and more recently to countries throughout the world. The initial intellectual impetus came from the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and the recognition of the close relationship between the pervasive racial segregation in American society and land use regulations that perpetuated it through what came to be known as exclusionary zoning. Indeed, the term inclusionary zoning was coined as the converse, and was first used to refer more broadly to any strategy designed to foster the production of affordable housing in otherwise exclusive and affluent suburban jurisdictions. The authors found that two countries (Canada and the United States) decentralize land use regulation to the state or provincial level; two countries (Ireland and Spain) centrally mandate inclusionary housing; two countries (England and France) centrally enable its use; and one country (Italy) until recently did neither centrally, thus prompting inclusionary housing as a local initiative. Other nations including Colombia, India, Israel, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and South Africa offer their own variations of inclusionary housing. Global political shifts and changes in economic and social policy have all contributed to the emergence of inclusionary housing as arguably the most significant new public policy direction in the realm of social and affordable housing in recent decades. The chapter authors explore how variations in political, social, and economic cultures and conditions have led to different forms of inclusionary housing, and how the policies are working on the ground to address the need for better housing and greater social inclusion.