Impacts of Water-Related Building Moratoria on California’s Housing Crisis 

Abstract

California is facing a housing affordability crisis, which has been partially blamed on building moratoria enacted to address the state’s severe water shortages. This study uses data on moratoria enactments in California from 2010 to 2018 to examine their impact on new housing supply and prices. We find that the short-term impact of the moratoria on housing supply is small, but the effect grows over time and becomes more significant in later years, especially for locally mandated moratoria. We do not find that these supply shocks have had an impact on housing prices.