If you’ve lived in College Station for long enough — or tried to get an apartment at a sufficiently low price — you’ve probably heard of “no more than four.” 

For the uninitiated, it’s a city ordinance that stipulates “the number of unrelated people living together in a single-family unit” must be “no more than four.” Unfortunately, the definition of a single-family home is quite broad, including “homes, townhomes, duplexes and some apartment complexes.” Awfully inconvenient, to say the least.

Nonetheless, I’m not writing to address this policy — even though another belittling of it would certainly be warranted. Instead, I’d like to address the larger problem, of which “no more than four” is simply a small part: zoning laws and regulations. 

Zoning is simply a type of governmental policy which regulates the use and construction of real property in a specific area. For example, a city might decide that the area between 1st and 5th Street is only going to be used for single-family homes, while the area between 5th and 10th Street can have only commercial developments. 

Cities can also zone in subtler ways. For example, they could introduce parking lot minimums or occupancy limits — that’s where we get College Station’s “no more than four” policy.

Not all cities zone. Houston doesn’t have any zoning — although it does have some other bad regulations. On the other hand, cities like San Francisco are notorious for their single-family housing policies. And, as you can see from College Station’s zoning map, our city is on the pro-zoning side of things.

Fortunately for homeowners, these laws keep real estate prices high. As for the tens of thousands of students? Good luck paying rent.

The reason for this increase in the housing price as a result of zoning should be clear from an intuitive standpoint: Zoning laws decrease housing supply by allocating certain tracts of land away from potential housing development. 

When supply is restricted, the same number of buyers are bargaining with fewer sellers, increasing prices as a result. Although not all tracts of land will be used for housing, the demands on the supply of housing end up mattering on the margins. When you’re in a city with high population movement, that ends up making a big difference.

It’s not just the supply of housing, either. Oftentimes, zoning regulations place archaic approval processes on housing construction that only serve to increase building prices while doing nothing for the residents or property owners. In these cases, zoning doesn’t even benefit the people who own property; it simply saps resources out of the economy.

There’s also the problem of car dependence. Although you’d probably need a car almost anywhere in the United States, zoning often increases reliance on cars and results in unnecessary externalities. This is because, in a zoned city, you’ll often have to drive out of your neighborhood completely in order to get to any other type of development besides residences. 

A loosening of zoning restrictions can allow for the development of certain commercial properties alongside residential ones, preventing a lot of unnecessary grocery trips. Honestly, if it gets traffic off the roads, it’s good enough for me.

Maybe you live in the Rise and already have these conveniences at your disposal. Alternatively, maybe you’re thinking of the all-too-common objection: “Wouldn’t they just build factories in my backyard?”

Regarding the former, all I can say is that I’m jealous. On the latter, College Station wasn’t an epicenter of manufacturing last time I checked. Even if it was, eliminating damaging zoning regulations is a far cry from permitting factory development right next to residential property. 

Unfortunately, many arguments against de-zoning simply take the worst possible case in a non-zoning city; even zoning all types of housing under a single “housing” zone would improve the situation considerably without any risk. We’re a ways away from that doomsday scenario.

What can we do to fix this? Unfortunately, not much at the moment. However, participation in local elections is a critical aspect of fixing these issues. As with any young generation, Generation Z’s voting participation is quite low compared to the majority of the population. Things won’t be perfect if you vote for anti-zoning politicians, but every bit counts.

Kaleb Blizzard is a philosophy sophomore and opinion writer for The Battalion.