Prescriptive Land Use Regulation (Smart Growth) & Higher House Prices: The Association Page 1 The Association between Prescriptive Land Use Regulation and Higher House Prices: Literature Review on Smart Growth, Growth Management,

It is a fundamental principle, that all things being equal, that limiting the supply of a good or service is likely to lead to higher prices. This is a particularly important relationship in housing, because of the adoption of much stronger land use regulations ("prescriptive land use regulation") around the world. Generally, research associates higher house prices with the implementation and enforcement of stronger land use regulations. Prescriptive land use regulations include measures such as urban growth boundaries, large areas declared off-limits to development, building moratoria, population limits, unit construction limits, expensive unprecedented impact fees, excessively large minimum lot sizes and other restrictive strategies. Prescriptive land use regulation allows development only prescribed under strict conditions that are consistent with stringent land use plans and policies. These policies are referred to as “smart growth, ” (also called "livability, " "compac