Part 1: Why do we need to legalize neighborhood-scale housing in every Saint Paul neighborhood?
In this blog series, we take a deeper dive into the 1-4 housing study. Learn the “why” behind this study and how you can get involved.
Housing availability and affordability
In Saint Paul, both renters and homebuyers have faced challenges due to the city’s (and the broader region’s) lack of housing availability. Rental vacancy rates and home buying inventories have been too low, driving up prices for everybody. This is an outcome of failing to build enough housing in our city, despite our growing population. Part of the problem is that, for 50 years, restrictive zoning laws have made new housing construction illegal in much of our city. By law, we have mandated that much of our residential land can only have one unit per lot.
Legalizing more neighborhood-scale housing would open up new opportunities to add both affordable and market-rate housing in our city and dig ourselves out of the current housing shortage.
Diverse housing choices for a diverse city
Saint Paul is a far more diverse place than it was when most of the city’s housing stock was built. Sixty years ago, the average household in Saint Paul had two adults and two children. Today, the average household in Saint Paul is a single adult. “Multi-generational” living arrangements are also increasingly common in Saint Paul: grandparents, their children, children’s spouses, and grandchildren all living together. We need homes that can accommodate the whole spectrum of household diversity in our city.
In most of Saint Paul’s residential areas, the only type of home that is legal to build is a single-family detached home; various other neighborhood-scale housing choices are not allowed. We believe that Saint Paulites deserve to have more than one type of home to choose from in every neighborhood! Single-family detached houses are a great choice for many Saint Paul residents, but they aren’t the best option for every household, and so they shouldn’t be the only legal option. For example, some young adults and older adults either don’t want or can’t afford the cost or the upkeep of an entire house, and would prefer to rent or own a unit of a duplex, a townhouse or an accessory dwelling unit.
Housing density makes our city more walkable, interesting, and small business-friendly
Walkable neighborhoods are places where residential populations are high enough to support the co-location of their residents’ regular destinations (doctors’ offices, grocery stores, coffee shops and restaurants, etc.) within walking distance from their homes. Residents of walkable neighborhoods benefit from the ability to run their daily errands on foot, by bicycle, or via public transit, without need of a car. Legalizing more types of homes throughout Saint Paul is the first step towards making it possible for Saint Paul’s neighborhoods to evolve into walkable places, where car-free and car-light living is easy.
Living our values as a welcoming community
Saint Paul is an amazing place to live, and increasing numbers of people want to live here! We believe that those people would make Saint Paul an even better place and should be welcomed. Our current housing policies stand in opposition to our values as a welcoming city; they make it difficult to build homes to accommodate the new residents who seek to live here. Our city has enough space to accommodate all who wish to live here. We can help ensure that all newcomers have a place to live by legalizing more varieties and quantities of housing.
Supporting low-carbon transportation habits
Transportation is one of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions in Minnesota, and restrictive zoning in the Twin Cities helps maintain this status quo. Cities like Saint Paul are uniquely able to offer their residents low-carbon lifestyles; residents often live typically closer to amenities and can walk, bike, or use public transportation to get around. When zoning laws limit the amount of housing that can be built in our city, they also limit the number of people who can adopt low-carbon transportation habits. As a result, suburban housing developments sprawl ever further outward, which takes away existing natural habitats while forcing residents to endure long highway commutes.
When we build more housing in Saint Paul, we increase access to more environmentally sustainable lifestyles, and help maintain a well-connected network for pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit riders.
Undoing the legacy of racism in zoning
Zoning laws that only allow for single-unit detached houses are part of a long lineage of racist, exclusionary housing policy across Saint Paul and the United States. These laws, which also tend to tightly restrict minimum lot sizes and floor-area-ratios, require many neighborhoods to mostly have the most expensive possible forms of housing: single-family homes with large yards. Neighborhoods that are already racially and economically exclusive continue to be inaccessible and self-segregating, while some neighbors fight to prevent any new housing that might allow a broader array of residents to move in.
We know that changing zoning laws won’t end racism in housing, but we know that exclusionary zoning laws are one element of racist housing policy that must be ended. Legalizing neighborhood-scale density across our city can help break down barriers to living in certain neighborhoods.
Aging in place
The percentage of our city’s population over the age of 65 is likely to grow steadily over the next few decades, and many of them will want to remain in their neighborhoods. Unfortunately, many Saint Paul neighborhoods lack sufficient homes that suit the unique needs of older adults: small homes, single-level homes without stairs, and so on. Legalizing more neighborhood-scale housing choices will enable Saint Paul to gradually respond to the growing need for these residences.
But many older adults in Saint Paul don’t just need suitable places to live in every neighborhood; they also need the ability to safely travel to regular destinations without a car. Legalizing more housing choices can help solve this problem too, by making it possible for neighborhoods to sustain a higher number of coffeeshops, medical offices and pharmacies, grocery stores, and other destinations within a short walk of their residences. (See above: “Housing density makes cities more walkable.”)
Incremental development strengthens neighborhoods
The status quo of housing development in Saint Paul is characterized by extremes. Almost all new homes in Saint Paul come in the form of 4-6 story midrise apartment buildings, financed by big banks and built by corporate developers, and located along a few streets (e.g., Snelling, Marshall, University) and in a few neighborhoods (e.g., Highland, Lowertown). Almost everywhere else, Byzantine zoning rules forbid the construction of additional homes altogether. This “all-or-nothing” pattern of development is unhealthy; it results in sudden, sometimes disruptive change in a few places, and stagnation in others. The only real beneficiaries of this system are homeowners in wealthy neighborhoods, buyers or renters in these new buildings, and corporate developers.
A healthier housing ecosystem would enable gradual increases in the supply of housing in every neighborhood of Saint Paul – in other words, “incremental development.” Just as gardens flourish when they receive consistent, moderate amounts of water and sunlight (and suffer during a drought or a flood), neighborhoods and cities flourish when they are allowed to grow gradually and over time. Legalizing a variety of neighborhood-scale multi-family housing types throughout Saint Paul (plexes, townhomes, etc.) will enable the kind of incremental growth that our neighborhoods need to thrive.
Expanding homeownership opportunities, community wealth
For most Americans, owning a home is the best way to build wealth, but starter homes are disappearing in Saint Paul. As home values rapidly rise in Saint Paul, the opportunity to climb the first rung of the homeownership ladder is slipping out of reach for many. Our city doesn’t just need more homes: it needs homes that people can afford to buy. Research from the Family Housing Fund shows that multi-family buildings such as duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes can provide affordable pathways to homeownership. For example, a household can afford the mortgage for a duplex by living in one half and renting out the other. Additionally, selling units in a multifamily building separately provides a more affordable housing option for young families looking to purchase a starter home or older residents looking to downsize.
Adaptive reuse
Building more homes in Saint Paul isn’t only a matter of constructing shiny new apartments. We can create thousands of new homes throughout the city simply by retrofitting old buildings: making small additions, renovating the interiors, and adding new appliances to transform a large single-family house into two, three, or four apartments. Not only is this environmentally sustainable, but it can result in more affordable homes than brand-new buildings.
Protecting parkland from development
Saint Paul needs more housing, but single-family detached housing takes up an incredible amount of space for one household. That is space that could be used for natural beauty in the form of parks, which make our city a pleasant place to live. Reforming our zoning to allow denser housing mitigates the temptation to slowly develop over parkland because builders may build up and not out.
Such was the case in the Highland Bridge development. Because the zoning allowed for medium-density housing throughout the site rather than forcing builders to develop exclusively single-family detached homes, the City had room to create four new parks without sacrificing much-needed housing for families to call home.
Join our campaign for more housing choices!
We’re organizing a coalition of organizations and residents to show our support for the City’s proposed amendments to the Zoning Code stemming from their 1-4 Unit Housing Study. Please join us! Here are a few ways you can take action:
Visit our Get Involved page to sign up for our email list, join our Slack channel, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter to receive updates about the campaign, action alerts to testify at City Hall, and more.
Send us a note if you’d like to play a greater role in organizing our campaign, or if you’re part of another organization that would like to consider joining our coalition.
Help spread the word! Tell your friends and neighbors about the issue, and invite them to check out our website to learn more.
Share your “neighborhood housing story” with us! Have you ever lived in a duplex, an ADU, or a small apartment building? Write to us and tell us why you support more housing choices in your neighborhood.
