Australia’s housing debate is stuck — too hard, too slow, too expensive.
Yet elsewhere, solutions are working.
Cincinnati backed zoning reform with real money. Texas front-loaded infrastructure.
Vancouver taxed empties back into use. And New Zealand simply rewrote its rules.
Bold, coordinated action can boost supply and affordability faster than any inquiry ever will.
1. Cincinnati did what Canberra won’t
Spend long enough in Australian housing debates and you start to think we’re trapped in concrete.
Too hard, too slow, too expensive.
Yet, halfway across the world, in a midwestern city most Aussies couldn’t place on a map, something is stirring.
Cincinnati, Ohio - population just over 300,000 - is testing a model that mixes zoning reform with real funding for affordable housing.
And while it’s not a silver bullet, it’s worth watching. Because the principles translate.
The zoning shake-up
In mid-2024, Cincinnati adopted what it calls Connected Communities.
The idea is simple: cut the red tape strangling housing supply and make it legal to build more types of homes.
The reform focuses on “missing middle” housing - duplexes, triplexes, and small walk-up apartment blocks - that slot into existing neighbourhoods without needing to bulldoze whole streets.
Along transit corridors and in neighbourhood business districts, the city has:
- Removed density caps that used to restrict how many dwellings could be built on a site.
- Relaxed height and setback rules so developers can make better use of land.
- Cut parking minimums, recognising that forcing two spots per flat makes housing less viable.
- Expanded by-right approvals, meaning fewer trips through endless planning hearings.
This isn’t a wholesale abolition of single-family zoning, but it is a targeted recalibration.
Put simply: more homes can now be built, faster, in the places people actually want to live.
The money to match
Zoning reform is necessary, but not sufficient.
In hot markets, all it guarantees is more expensive apartments.
That’s why Cincinnati’s second move matters: it finally put its affordable housing trust fund to work.
The trust fund was legally created back in 2018 but sat empty for years.
Then the city filled it, piecing together money from pandemic relief, budget surpluses, private donations, and a slice of short-term rental tax.
It also created a bigger vehicle: the Affordable Housing Leverage Fund, managed by the Cincinnati Development Fund (CDF).
This pool blends city, state, federal and philanthropic capital.
It acts as “gap finance,” plugging the holes that otherwise make affordable projects impossible to deliver.
What we know so far
Unlike many policy experiments, this one has some early numbers.
- Units delivered or preserved: About 1,800 income-restricted homes funded between late 2022 and late 2024.
- Who they serve: Roughly 85% of those units are reserved for households on ≤ 60% of local median income (AMI). Around half target ≤ 30% AMI, which in practical terms means families in real poverty.
- Funding scale: Around $74 million committed to 54 projects in just two years.
- Speed: Analysts reckon the Leverage Fund is now producing about three times more affordable units per year than Cincinnati was managing before. That’s despite construction costs jumping nearly 45% since 2020.
A concrete example: Slater Hall, 62 small apartments in the West End for residents with severe mental illness.
Rents are pegged so tenants never pay more than 30% of income.
It’s not glamorous, but it’s exactly the sort of housing the private market won’t touch without public backing.
All this shows two things.
First, that money matters, put serious capital on the table and projects start to move.
Second, that combining zoning reform with funding means approvals aren’t the bottleneck anymore; finance is.
Marketing
Cincinnati’s Connected Communities zoning reform has been accompanied by a broad outreach and education effort, though not a traditional marketing campaign.
The city created a dedicated website and interactive mapping tools to explain the changes and show which neighbourhoods are affected.
Over two years, officials hosted numerous engagement sessions - both in-person and virtual - along with surveys, workshops and webinars.
A notable example was the “Housing Our Future – Connected Communities” webinar series, which aimed to walk residents through the reform and answer questions directly.
Community partners have also amplified the message.
Groups such as real estate associations, sustainable development coalitions and housing nonprofits have published op-eds, issued endorsements and run their own education pieces.
Local media has given the reforms extensive coverage, from TV and radio interviews with city officials to newspaper features and blog debates highlighting both support and opposition.
What’s missing is evidence of a full-fledged marketing push.
There are no signs of paid social media advertising, coordinated hashtag campaigns, billboard blitzes, or influencer-style promotions.
In short, Connected Communities has relied more on community engagement and public information than on polished branding or mass marketing.
Some gaps
Still, Cincinnati is far from solving its housing crunch. Estimates suggest the city needs 18,000 to 28,000 affordable homes just to catch up with demand.
Delivering 1,800 units in two years is a great start, but it’s still only nibbling at the edges.
And because Connected Communities zoning changes only came into force in July 2024, it’s too early to measure how many new dwellings will flow from the new rules.
Approvals are one thing; built product is another.
Other risks:
- Funding sustainability: Much of the trust fund is filled with one-off dollars like pandemic relief and private donations. Ongoing revenue streams (such as the city’s short-term rental tax, worth about US$1–1.5m a year) are modest compared to the scale of need.
- Neighbourhood politics: Some residents worry about character, parking, and congestion. Others argue the zoning changes don’t force enough affordable units alongside market builds.
- Rising costs: Even with subsidies, soaring labour and material costs risk eroding affordability before projects are complete.
In short: the framework is promising, but the proof will be in whether it can scale.
Lessons for Australia
There are three clear takeaways for us.
1. It’s not either/or.
We treat zoning reform and subsidies as opposing camps. But they’re complements. Zoning creates room for more supply; funding ensures part of that supply is affordable. Do one without the other and you miss half the picture.
2. Money has to be real.
Cincinnati shows that affordable housing needs serious, recurring dollars. Not token grants or pilot programs. If a midwestern US city of 300,000 can pull together $74 million in two years, our state capitals, and the likes of the Gold Coast, can do much more.
3. Outcomes need tracking.
It’s not enough to pass a reform. We need to know who benefits. Are the new homes reaching the households they’re meant to? Are they built near jobs and transport, or pushed to the fringes? Transparent, ongoing reporting is crucial. As is a major modern day marketing campaign.
The bottom line
Cincinnati hasn’t cracked the housing code.
But it has shown that you can take bold planning decisions and back them with serious funding.
Together, these moves are delivering more affordable homes, faster, and to the people who need them most.
Australia doesn’t need to copy Ohio wholesale.
Our cities are bigger, our politics messier, most of our housing markets hotter (for now).
But the principle holds: reform zoning and fund affordability at the same time.
Less process. More progress. Less is more.
The alternative?
More reports, more inquiries, more excuses.
And a housing gap that keeps widening while we talk ourselves in circles.
2. Texas builds the pipes before the politics
Where Cincinnati leans on zoning reform and trust funds, Texas has long relied on a different engine to drive housing: the Municipal Utility District, or MUD.
These special-purpose districts are the hidden backbone of suburban growth around Houston, Dallas, and Austin.
A MUD is set up to provide essential infrastructure - water, sewer, drainage - in areas not yet serviced.
Instead of waiting for city or state governments, developers petition the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to create a MUD.
Once approved, the district issues tax-exempt bonds to finance utilities. Residents then repay those bonds through their property taxes.
The model has three key effects.
First, it front-loads infrastructure so housing can be delivered quickly and at scale.
Second, it spreads costs across future residents, reducing the upfront burden on developers.
Third, it keeps a degree of local control, since boards are elected by property owners inside the district.
MUDs don’t solve every problem - they add another layer of taxation and governance - but they have been instrumental in meeting Texas’s rapid suburban growth.
In short, while Ohio reforms zoning and funds affordability, Texas builds new suburbs by financing the pipes and drains first.
And obviously, Australia’s system is different.
Councils and state governments control infrastructure, while developers typically fund headworks and services upfront, recovering costs through lot prices.
We don’t have a “special district” mechanism, our municipal bond market is shallow, and tax-exempt financing doesn’t exist.
Still, the model could be adapted.
States could legislate Special Purpose Infrastructure Districts (SPIDs), empowered to levy targeted rates inside their boundaries.
These levies would back infrastructure bonds issued via state treasury corporations like QTC or TCV.
Governance could evolve: developers and state reps in the early years, transitioning to elected local boards as communities mature.
Such districts could cover more than utilities, extending to parks, drainage, and local roads.
The benefits: faster greenfield development, lower entry prices by spreading costs, and a dedicated funding channel outside council budgets.
The hurdles are political - fears of “double rates” and governance risks - but with safeguards, SPIDs could help deliver homes faster and cheaper.
And of course it would peeve the utility providers.
Yet I would like to be a fly on the wall when a MUD was discussed in front of, say Energex, for example.
But it is food for thought and a much better way to spend government monies than on events and sporting arenas!
3. Vancouver taxed the empty—and filled the gaps
Back in 2017, Vancouver introduced an Empty Homes Tax to deal with a chronic rental squeeze.
The idea was simple: if your home sits vacant for more than half the year and it’s not your principal residence, you pay a levy based on the property’s value.
The rate started at 1%, but has since risen to as much as 3% to 5%.
Owners must declare annually whether their property is occupied, rented, or vacant.
If they don’t, it’s automatically deemed vacant.
There are exemptions – for renovations, medical absences, or estates – but enforcement is tough. Audits and fines for false declarations keep the scheme credible.
Importantly, the revenue raised is earmarked for affordable housing projects.
And it’s worked.
Vancouver reports that the number of empty dwellings has halved since the scheme began.
Tens of thousands of homes that would otherwise sit idle have been nudged back into the rental pool.
Of course, it isn’t perfect.
Some owners game the system, exemptions can be stretched, and administration is complex.
But the lesson is clear: penalties that bite, backed by audits and transparency, can free up stock fast.
In Australia, around 580,000 investment homes aren’t rented out.
If even 20% of that “shadow stock” came onto the rental market, vacancy rates could jump from 1% to closer to 3% – a massive difference.
The question is whether we’re serious enough to follow Vancouver’s lead.
4. And a bit closer to home…New Zealand up zoned while we up-talked
New Zealand shows what can happen when governments get serious about housing reform.
Auckland’s housing boom over the past few years didn’t happen by accident — it’s the result of deliberate, bipartisan planning reform and state-backed delivery.
In 2016, the city adopted the Auckland Unitary Plan, a sweeping rezoning that upzoned roughly three-quarters of residential land, allowing higher densities, smaller lots, and more compact housing types.
The changes slashed barriers to development and made multi-unit and infill projects viable across much of the city.
The results were dramatic.
Within a few years, building consents and completions surged to record highs, with Auckland now accounting for more than 40% of all new dwellings in New Zealand.
In some recent periods, new home completions were up about 40% compared with pre-reform levels.
Studies using quasi-experimental analysis found strong causal evidence that upzoning directly increased construction in affected areas, even after adjusting for market spillovers.
This supply-side boost has helped moderate house-price growth relative to other New Zealand regions and is frequently cited — including by the Grattan Institute — as proof that bold, city-wide zoning reform can materially increase housing starts.
Alongside this, the government’s Kāinga Ora Retrofit Programme has been modernising older public housing across the lower South Island, improving insulation, glazing, and energy efficiency.
The program has already retrofitted thousands of homes, helping extend housing life and cut running costs.
Together, Auckland’s planning overhaul and nationwide retrofit push show what coordinated policy and political courage can achieve.
And that’s not all that has happened across the ditch.
Under new regulations, which come into effect in January 2026, Kiwis will be able to construct dwellings of up to 70 square metres in their backyards without building consent.
End note
There’s no silver bullet, but there are blueprints.
Cincinnati paired zoning reform with real money.
Texas financed growth through smart districts.
Vancouver reclaimed empty homes.
New Zealand unleashed infill housing.
Together, they prove what’s possible when willpower meets policy.
Australia could do the same - if we finally choose momentum over meetings.
