Airspace Rights and Affordable Housing Supply

Murray and Gordon develop an "airspace rights" conception of zoning to critique recent reforms that upzone land without recapturing the value of privatized land use rights. This comment offers two objections to the arguments presented by the authors. First, given that zoned capacity determines long-run housing supply, upzoning offers one potential solution to the affordable housing crisis. Second, Murray and Gordon's "public recapture" proposals could exacerbate the affordable housing crisis unless recaptured value is applied towards targeted affordable housing investments. For these and other reasons, Murray and Gordon fail to make a compelling case for recapturing the value of privatized airspace rights.