The Pioneer Press investigates the otherwise unseen costs of regulations on housing prices. I’m not surprised that they estimate the cost of compliance with housing regulations at 20-30% of the price, are you? That equals $40-60,000 added to the price of a $200,000 home.
The author describes some of the requirements that contribute to the extra costs:
- 80-foot-wide lots
- multi-acre lots
- no rain runoff flowing into streams & building ponds
- wetlands
- rare species
- $4000 fire sprinkler systems
- tornado-safe rooms in town homes with no basements (steel-doored rooms lined with three-quarter-inch plywood and Kevlar, the fabric used in bulletproof police vests. The price tag? $2,000)
- streets wide enough for four lanes of traffic
- cul-de-sacs enlarged to allow an oversized fire truck to turn around
- costly architectural extras, such as stonework or full-width porches
- 360-degree architecture, which makes four sides of a house attractive
- sometimes, it’s done intentionally to make less affordable housing
In the past, when buyers wanted a certain type of home, developers built it, said Ed Goetz, professor of Urban and Regional Planning for the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
But now, thanks to regulations, they can’t.
“This is not a free market,” Goetz said.
