Fresh off yesterday’s post on single-family zoning comes this news out of Louisville: a proposal to allow developers to build multi-family housing in single-family zoned districts. Developers would also get to build denser projects if a percentage of the units are affordable – a variant of inclusionary zoning.

But alas, density bonuses aren’t enough, as this editorial out of Charlotte, N.C., makes clear. They resulted in zero affordable units from private developers in that city over the last couple of years, so other planning tools are needed to meet the massive affordable housing gap in that city.

Ostensibly these big cities to the south have little in common with any place in Vermont, but it’s worth noting that they’re both struggling with the same overall problem we face here – an acute affordable housing shortage – and that there are no silver bullets. It’s a complexity that requires a mix of policies to alleviate.