{"id":2681273,"date":"2026-10-11T10:13:34","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T14:13:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/new-orleans-city-council-just-showed-how-affordable-housing-can-destroy-a-housing-market\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T10:17:02","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T14:17:02","slug":"new-orleans-city-council-just-showed-how-affordable-housing-can-destroy-a-housing-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/new-orleans-city-council-just-showed-how-affordable-housing-can-destroy-a-housing-market\/","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans City Council Just Showed How &#8216;Affordable Housing&#8217; Can Destroy a Housing Market"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fnew-orleans-city-council-just-showed-how-affordable-housing-can-destroy-a-housing-market%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2681273&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/americans-held-hostage-by-hamas\/\" title=\"Americans Held Hostage by Hamas\">provided content appears<\/a> to be an excerpt from a web page that includes a &#8220;Read more&#8230;&#8221; button designed to reveal additional facts upon clicking. the hidden section contains a lengthy discussion on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tesla-is-pouring-1-billion-into-its-texas-based-gigafactory\/\" title=\"Tesla Is Pouring  Billion Into Its Texas-Based \u2018Gigafactory\u2019\">housing affordability issues<\/a> in the United States, emphasizing how government actions-such as restrictive regulations, mandates, and fines-have intentionally or unintentionally suppressed housing supply. It highlights that excessive regulations make building new homes costly, leading to a shortage of 1.5 to 7.3 million units and rising home prices since the 1970s. The article critiques specific policies, like New Orleans&#8217; affordability mandates, which have failed to produce affordable housing and have instead increased development costs, ultimately raising rents. It advocates for reducing taxes and regulation to stimulate housing development, noting that places like Houston have more affordable housing due to minimal regulation. The piece also criticizes government interventions as the core cause of high housing costs and argues that easing regulation is the most effective way to improve affordability.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><br \/>\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\"><br \/>\n<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><html><body><\/p>\n<section> \t\t\t\t<script>console.log(\"ad slot (AC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC2)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC3)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC4)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (REP_0)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (REP_1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (REP_2)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (REP_3)\")<\/script><\/p>\n<p>If you want to know why housing is so unaffordable in the United States, just look at what governments at all levels have done to suppress the supply of housing while the nation\u2019s population has expanded rapidly because of unbridled immigration.<\/p>\n<p>A vast thicket of laws and regulations at all levels of government makes it incredibly expensive to build houses, creating a shortfall of 1.5 million to 7.3 million units, according to a new study by the Mortgage Bankers Association.<\/p>\n<p>The median house price has been rising rapidly since the 1970s, as state and local regulations have made it increasingly difficult and unprofitable to build houses and apartment buildings.<\/p>\n<p>Politicians\u2019 reaction to the damage they cause is to pile on more laws and regulations, and to garnish them with subsidies and fines that distort the market even further.<\/p>\n<p>A recent example from Louisiana illustrates the problem very well.<\/p>\n<p>The New Orleans City Council is rolling back an affordable housing mandate that \u201cfailed to produce a single apartment complex since being passed in 2020,\u201d The Center Square reported.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHousing affordability in the city has only gotten worse\u201d since the government imposed the mandate, the story said.<\/p>\n<p>The idea of the mandate was to lower housing costs for consumers by increasing the supply of affordable apartments.<\/p>\n<p>The City Council\u2019s brilliant idea for how to do this was to make it too expensive to construct an apartment complex without charging below-market prices for a specific percentage of the units.<\/p>\n<p>Developers would have to provide a specific number of \u201caffordable\u201d units, or pay a sizable fine for\u2026 building housing.<\/p>\n<p>The ordinance set the percentage of \u201caffordable\u201d apartments at a suspiciously round number, indicating that it was not based on any kind of serious economic analysis or any inquiry of any kind: \u201cUnder the mandate, a 100-unit apartment complex in the city\u2019s Core mandatory inclusionary zone would generally have to reserve 10 units as affordable housing,\u201d The Center Square reported.<\/p>\n<p>The fines were enormous: \u201cIf the developer chose not to, the alternative fee could total about $3,000,000.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The program failed to achieve the stated intent, as anyone with basic arithmetic skills could have predicted.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of repealing the mandate, however, the city government is now decreasing the fine to a round number that the lawmakers have apparently decided builders will find tolerable, cutting the per-unit \u201cfee\u201d from $304,810 to $10,000.<\/p>\n<p>That radically lowers the cost for developers to avoid the set-aside requirement.<\/p>\n<p>It also highlights the absurdity of the policy. Artificially raising the cost of a 100-unit apartment complex will cause the owners to increase rents accordingly to make up for that loss, thus resulting in zero additional \u201caffordable\u201d apartments while creating higher rents for those who move into the new building.<\/p>\n<p>How that makes anything more affordable is a great mystery.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHousing development is fundamentally a math equation,\u201d New Orleans Home Builders Association CEO Dan Mills told The Center Square.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf developers are required to sell or rent a portion of units below market rates, the lost revenue must be absorbed somewhere else in the project,\u201d Mills added.<\/p>\n<p>The same is true of the fines. The residents will pay for them.<\/p>\n<p>While building zero new apartment complexes under the threat of the fines, developers responded positively to being paid to provide apartments: \u201cOther affordable housing projects have seen more success, especially those subsidized with federal dollars,\u201d The Center Square noted. \u201cThose projects have produced 260 individual units since 2021.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That is to be expected. Of course, the money came from taxpayers across the country, who certainly received no benefits from the spending.<\/p>\n<p>Politicians are the main reason for high housing prices, as I documented in this Heartland Institute policy study titled \u201cHousing Affordability: America\u2019s Short-Term Crisis and Long-Term Problem,\u201d released earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>Government regulations and currency manipulation suppress the housing supply and drive up prices, locking people out of the American dream of homeownership and self-reliance.<\/p>\n<p>Land-use regulation is minimal in Houston, and the price of a new home is near its construction costs. In highly regulated places such as Manhattan, Boston, and San Francisco, the same house meanwhile costs two to five times as much, because of restrictions and mandates, not higher costs of labor or materials, the Affordable Housing Initiative reported.<\/p>\n<p>New Orleans should follow Houston\u2019s lead and let people build.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the City Council is retaining the reduced apartment fine with the intention of jacking it back up later, when different economic conditions will presumably cause the policy to generate an effect diametrically opposite to what it has produced thus far.<\/p>\n<p>The politicians will reinstate the fees \u201cwhen the City\u2019s real estate market is stronger and more able to bear them,\u201d council member Lesli Harris said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStrong\u201d markets, however, do not \u201cbear\u201d stupidly expensive and ill-conceived fines and mandates. They just become distorted markets.<\/p>\n<p>It is not \u201cmarket failure,\u201d but destruction by government.<\/p>\n<p>Harris\u2019s explanation for retaining the program underscores the incoherence of the mandates-and-fines approach: The requirements do absolutely nothing but punish people for building apartments in New Orleans.<\/p>\n<p>The sole possible effect of the requirements is to keep people from building apartments if the mandate is \u201crobust\u201d enough to affect developers\u2019 decision-making.<\/p>\n<p>The only thing such a mandate can do is suppress building.<\/p>\n<p>Cutting taxes and unnecessary regulation is the only reliable way for a government to spur economic production, including the housing supply. That is the only way to solve an affordability problem.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><i><b>The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either d or endorsed by the owners of this website. 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