SoCal municipalities don’t offer these incentives to make housing more affordable, but could

Ajay Garde, "Affordable by Design? Inclusionary Housing Insights from Southern California," Journal of Planning Education and Research 31 (2016): 3

The take-away: As stated in the abstract, the key finding of this article is that “a lower density, decreased street connectivity, and a closer proximity to a transit stop can contribute to increased housing premiums, while mixed land uses are not shown to always do so.”

Abstract (comprehensive): The principles of New Urbanism such as increased density, mixed land uses, and street connectivity are often recommended in response to the typical conditions of suburban developments. Much current empirical research has begun to test whether these principles can increase property values. The findings of these studies have, however, been quite inconsistent. This research attempts to quantitatively synthesize these conflicting findings through a statistical meta-analysis. This study finds that a lower density, decreased street connectivity, and a closer proximity to a transit stop can contribute to increased housing premiums, while mixed land uses are not shown to always do so.

Full article (FREE public access)