Digitizing Zoning Laws ⁽³⁾

For nearly a century, the golden rule of urban planning was simple: zoning is a local matter. City councils, local planning commissions, and neighborhood councils held the keys to the built environment. They decided where the commercial corridors went, what the setbacks should be, and what kind of housing could be built. But today, we are witnessing a massive paradigm shift. In response to a crippling national housing shortage, states across the United States are taking the wheel. They are increasingly overriding local municipal codes to force increased housing production, fundamentally changing how we plan and build our cities. The…

In 2013, I was starting my graduate studies at UCLA, and the City of Los Angeles launched one of the most ambitious urban planning initiatives in modern history - re:code LA. The goal was clear and desperately needed. Los Angeles was operating on a bloated, Frankensteined zoning code originally written in 1946. It had thousands of pages of overlays, conditions, and contradictory amendments. It was a bureaucratic nightmare that choked housing production and confused everyone but the most expensive land-use lawyers. The promise of re:code LA was a complete, citywide rewrite. A modern, simplified code for the 21st century. Everyone…

It started in a classroom at UCLA in 2014. I was working on my Master’s in Urban Planning, when I decided to take a business plan development course jointly offered by the business school. The assignment was to build a business plan for a startup idea, and so my mind went to a recurring problem I had come across during my graduate studies. I was frustrated. As I learned about the major role local governments have played in shaping our built environment, I saw a stark contrast. Private organizations were constantly upgrading their tech stacks, streamlining operations, and becoming more…