at the same time landuse and planning have important implications for housing policy on the one hand they have direct effects on spatial segregation on the other they can limit the responsiveness of housing supply to other housing programmes by increasing the amount of time and the number of bureaucratic steps needed to obtain building permits oecd furthermore when landuse and planning restrictions limit housing supply land and housing prices will capture the value of housing subsidies with perverse effects on wealth distribution moreover multiple levels of government are responsible for executing regulating and sometimes delivering these policies this high degree of complexity might lead to contrasting objectives and goals with loss of efficiency and potentially wider negative effects on the economy this paper identifies the main challenges faced by households in accessing goodquality affordable housing and analyses the housing policies put in place by oecd countries to understand the degree to which they share social policy objectives and pursue them through the implemented policy mix