Missing Middle Density Will Take More Than Zoning Changes

[M II A II R II K]

What if They Passed Zoning Reform and Nobody Came?


September 3, 2020

By Daniel Herriges

Read More: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/...nd-nobody-came

At the end of 2018, planners in Minneapolis drew extensive national press for an historic accomplishment: passing a comprehensive plan update that ended both exclusive single-family zoning and mandatory parking minimums citywide. Since an implementing ordinance passed in November 2019, it is now legal to build a duplex or triplex on any residential lot in Minneapolis. — Would Minneapolis begin to sprout triplex homes in its wealthy, exclusive enclaves better known for single-family teardowns and expensive, large rebuilds? Would predatory speculators buy up affordable homes in poorer neighborhoods and replace them with triplexes built on the cheap? So far, the answer appears to be no and no.

- Eric Myers, director of government affairs for Minneapolis Area Realtors association, blames lines of city building code. He says the association “applauds” Minneapolis for ambitious, forward-thinking policies like the 2040 Plan, a clear sign the city’s hungry for more, denser, and more affordable housing. But even though new zoning laws permit triplexes, the underlying code was still written with single-family homes in mind. Height restrictions are the same, as are setback requirements. Triplexes built on single-family lots have to fit within the footprint of the original building. — “Minneapolis has a lot of 40-foot lots,” he says. “A lot of triplexes aren’t going to fit.” It’s possible to clear those hurdles by requesting a variance from the city, but that, Myers says, is a “cumbersome and expensive process” most developers would rather not bother with. Not when there’s easier money to be made elsewhere. That isn’t to say triplexes would never work in the city, Myers says. He thinks a few regulations would have to change to make it feasible or desirable on the building side of things, but the demand is already there.

- Lots of factors can add cost or complication to a project that is technically legal. We've seen this over the years, for example, with accessory dwelling units (ADUs), which are legal in many cities but rare because practical considerations make them uneconomic or undesirable. And what it takes to actually open the ADU floodgates hasn't always been obvious. Los Angeles, not a place known as a hotbed of interest in ADUs, seems to have stumbled upon the secret sauce (with the help of state legislation): a stunning 1 in 5 housing permits issued in LA in 2018 was for an ADU. — I've described this phenomenon using an ecological metaphor: that of a limiting factor or nutrient. You can give a plant all the nitrogen it needs, but if there isn't enough phosphorous, rain, or sunlight, it's all for naught. The same goes with change in a lot of complex, multi-factor systems: you have to find the key factor that is actually blocking change, and fix that. In Minneapolis, it seems the zoning alone isn't it. Again, this doesn't make zoning reform pointless. It makes it necessary but not sufficient.

- Residential builders are notoriously risk-averse, and the lenders they rely on to finance their projects are even more so. Everybody with skin in the development game wants to know they have a proven model, and so I suspect it's going to take a few more gutsy entrepreneurs doing successful proof-of-concept projects in this neighborhood or that before interest begins to mount. Large, established developers tend to make it clear that they're not interested in triplexes. Large, national lenders are wary. It will take a whole different ecosystem of small-scale developers and builders and community lendersnthe kind that every city used to have to build Missing Middle housing at scale. And cultivating that ecosystem is the challenge for cities that want it back: a forest doesn't grow overnight. — The Missing Middle has a lot going for it. We know this kind of low-rise, small-lot housing, which delivers a mix of ownership and rental homes, is a scalable way to build out whole cities. Why? Just visit New York, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, San Francisco, Chicago: you'll see miles upon miles of what else but duplexes and triplexes.

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