Zoning Regulations Pose Challenges for Regional Builders, but Three Female-Led Projects May Help

In order to boost nationwide housing supply and create more affordable housing units, builders are pushing for updated zoning regulations that would permit high-density development in existing neighborhoods, but ambiguous and archaic building codes pose a challenge. Luckily, a talented trio of women are working to make existing regulations computable to help builders envision and create scalable solutions across the U.S.

From property renderings and zoning maps created by Symbium to the National Zoning Atlas Project and a digitized database of zoning data called Deepblocks, tech experts are inventing new ways for national developers to work with, rather than against, regulations to create more affordable housing projects. 

As [Sara] Bronin and [Leila] Banijamali are demonstrating, the impact of digitizing the process is not only complex, but it is offering massive positive impacts. Olivia Ramos is founder and CEO for an online database of zoning data called Deepblocks, a system that is not only digitizing the zoning regulations, but adding on many other complex and important layers to heighten the value of those impacts.

Through her online platform, users can see demographic trends like median income, opportunity zones, historical districts, population trends, road types, traffic counts, REIT projects, unit density, and buildable area ratio, among other factors.

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