Environmental Impact Evaluation,Land Use Planning,and the Housing Consumer*

A number of states are following the federal government's lead and requiring environmental impact reviews of new development proposals. This paper examines ambitious EIR programs in Florida and California with the aim of assessing the costs and benefits of their programs, and, by extension, of state-mandated EIR programs in general. The focus is on new housing production. The findings are that EIR shows some promise of enabling communities to better protect themselves from adverse side effects of new development. At the same time, EIR adds what appears to be a modest increment to the overall costs of new housing. However, because EIR has expanded local government planning options, one of the side effects of EIR is likely to be the enhanced ability of localities to exclude moderate income families from new housing.