But the regulations may have also made housing too expensive to be affordable. The problem is that no private developer can build it without government money and make a profit. So it doesn't get built.'' The basic book of rules, the South Florida Building Code, has ballooned from 500 pages to 2,000 over the past three decades, when you include the associated volumes for fire protection, handicapped access and hurricane strength. Simultaneously, ''controlled growth'' measures have created several more tomes and a state planning bureaucracy. Some laws add costs simply by mandating new features like shutters and sprinklers.
Some laws add costs by forbidding small apartments and dense development.
Called ''snob zoning'' by some, these make affordable housing impractical to build. Finally, there are the so-called ''impact fees,'' an outgrowth of growth management laws. Originally intended to pass the costs of new schools, roads and other community assets onto big suburban developers, impact fees are having two unintended consequences. First, the fees are simply being passed through to buyers and renters and the burden is falling most heavily on affordable projects. Moreover, the rules are keeping poor, urban neighborhoods from improving.