From the CivicWell group: A discussion of how to create “missing middle housing” — Housing for working people. Much of the comments are based on urban-oriented needs; however there is much here that we can apply to the situation here in Arcata.
Missing Middle Housing examples in this video are designed that fill the gap between detached single-family homes and mid- to high-rise apartments. In Arcata, this would translate as 3-story buildings, most likely, or possibly 4-story.
“Housing supply has not kept up with demand in California. With costs among the highest in the nation, housing choices and ownership opportunities are increasingly out of reach for a growing number of individuals and families. Missing Middle Housing – accessory units, duplexes, fourplexes, courtyard buildings and more – can add supply, diversity, and affordability to more households.”
Click on a blue link to go there directly.
- The video: Missing Middle Housing: A proven strategy for Affordability and Walkable Neighborhoods
Video from October, 2022. 1 hour 26 minutes. - MP3 audio, which can be downloaded for listening to as a podcast.
- Table of Contents of the video
From the website of CivicWell.org –
“Transforming Local Vision into Action”
More on CivicWell.org:
CivicWell is a nonprofit supporting sustainable policies and the leaders and communities that implement them. We inspire, equip, connect, and cultivate civic leadership for local innovation and community change.
Since 1982, we have engaged local elected officials, government agencies, and community-based organizations through policy guidance, collaborative partnerships and coalitions, and direct assistance.
Missing Middle Housing: A proven strategy for Affordability and Walkable Neighborhoods
On October 6, 2022, CivcWell held a virtual roundtable with innovator and educator Karen Parolek of Opticos Design, housing policy expert David Garcia of the Terner Center for Housing Innovation, and developer Mott Smith of Civic Enterprise and the California Infill Builders Association, to explore the critical need for a greater range of housing options, Missing Middle Housing types that fill the gap between detached single-family homes and mid- to high-rise apartments, and barriers and solutions for implementation.
Video from October, 2022. 1 hour 26 minutes.
MP3 audio of the video.
Start the audio by pressing the Play button on the left.
This can be downloaded for listening to as a podcast.
.
Table of Contents of the video
Opening Introduction. (0:04)
Welcome to the virtual roundtable on missing middle housing, a proven strategy for affordability and walkable neighborhoods, sponsored by metta.
Housekeeping, ask questions during the presentation.
Intro to our guests. (2:40)
Introduction of Karen Perlick, David Garcia, Matt Smith and David garcia, policy director for the turner center for housing innovation at uc berkeley go bears.
Introduction of matt Smith, co-founder of civic enterprise.
There are lots of different ways that people like to live in the United States.
Three public school teachers live within walking distance of each other in a single family home.
By 2025, 75% or more of households will not have any children in them. By 2023, one in five americans will be 65 or older.
60% of people are now favoring walkable mix of houses and stores within walking distance of their homes.
How affordable housing is a supply and demand issue. (8:40)
Housing cost has gone up since the pandemic, and affordable housing needs to be subsidized in order to meet the needs of low-income households.
The state of Connecticut.
detached single family zones were part of racial history because they prevented black and brown people from moving into those neighborhoods because they could not get mortgages.
The current patterns of development are environmentally and economically unsustainable, and need to change.
What is missing middle housing? (12:32)
Missing middle housing. Most of what is getting built for the past 75 years has been detached single-family homes and high-price apartment buildings, but there are other building types like duplexes, triplexes, bungalowcourts, small multiplexes, etc.
Examples of house-scale buildings that have multiple units, walkable neighborhoods, live-work units.
The ground floor is a flex space, with the upper floors of residential where the home is, and the ground floor can also be a large living room, game room, or a retail or business space.
Examples of these examples all across the United States, from Detroit michigan to Denver.
Missing middle housing is a middle form and scale of the building. It’s a low rise building that looks like a single family home, but has multiple units in it.
Mid-rise and high-rise apartment buildings can also deliver housing for middle income households.
The value of walkable, walkable neighborhoods. (19:51)
Millennials and baby boomers are asking for this type of housing where they can live closer to different amenities. They are trading theamenity of space for a walkable, small town lifestyle.
It’s part of the puzzle of how to make the financial puzzle of small towns work.
It’s more affordable by design because the land costs per unit are lower. It’s lower construction costs and mid-rise buildings that don’t require a concrete podium.
The annual cost of owning a car is $10,000, and the park-and-ride rent is $225 a month.
Aarp is one of the biggest proponents of missing middle housing as a way to age in place in communities. The report was just released a week ago and is available for download.
Missing middle housing is also a great solution for secondary corridors.
Missing middle housing. (27:22)
Zoning has been illegal for the past 75 years in most towns, so zoning barriers and financing models don’t exist.
Zoning for separation and segregation was invented to separate and segregate us, so a small group of practitioners looked at how to write zoning to create walkable neighborhoods
Examples of how developers are responding to missing middle. (29:44)
Examples of how developers are responding to the new neighborhood they’ve designed outside of Omaha, Nebraska, where the entire neighborhood is missing rent-free housing.
Example of a new community in Tempe, Arizona, that is a car-free community, with a 3000 person waiting list.
Lastly, affordable developers are looking at using missing middle housing. They are using a mix of subsidized housing and missing middle and market-rate housing to help subsidize the other housing on the site.
Michelle obama grew up in Chicago in a stacked duplex, providing ways for three different generations.
What is missing middle? (34:58)
Housing choices, lower housing costs, address historic segregation and racial wealth gap, protect farmland and protect open space, strengthen community economy and lower infrastructure costs per household.
David Garcia, policy director at the Turner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, walks through some of the recent work and observations around missing middle housing.
Single family neighborhoods. (37:44)
There is a national trend towards reintroducing missing middle housing into single family neighborhoods, including the state of Oregon and the city of Minneapolis.
Missing middle housing can be offered at affordable prices.
The ability to provide more housing in a way that fits into existing neighborhoods and provides clear greenhouse gas emissions benefits, lower vehicle miles traveled.
The success of California’s accessory dwelling units.
There has been very little uptake of senate bill nine in California, according to the research.
Changing the zoning is not enough, there are so many other factors that dictate whether or not a project actually gets built, and cities need to recognize that.
Zoning and design requirements. (45:00)
Cities who are intentional about doing more than the zoning changes are also thinking about these design requirements.
The creation of missing middle housing presents a huge opportunity to scale up the industry.
A clear and efficient approval process is important to making this stuff work in the places where there is the most missing middle development.
Financing for these projects can be an interesting mix.
Some cities have done outlandish things to get out of state requirements, like declaring a town a refuge for mountain lions or using historic preservation.
Creating statewide standards for missing middle is important.
The importance of small medium multifamily projects. (51:00)
Mark is excited to hear what Matt has to say, and thanks to Mike for being part of the conversations that led to some of this research.
The importance of single family homes.
The Modern Bungalows project. (53:21)
The modern bungalows project in Los Angeles, where the original building permit for the project was first constructed back in 1926.
The project was originally rental housing in the silver lake neighborhood.
The three big barriers to production and producing missing middle housing, broken down into three key areas, zoning, building code and the approvals process.
Parking requirements are the biggest issue.
The problem with zoning and parking. (57:45)
Parking requirements become a problem when there is a mismatch between what zoning allows and what can be fit on a site.
Developers downsize the number of units to match the parking.
What happens when you eliminate parking requirements? (1:00:07)
Eliminate parking requirements for all uses within a half mile of transit, and overall housing production in San Diego increased by 24% in a period when statewide housing production declined.
Building codes.
Building with 36 feet and taller need to stairwells and two points of egress in California. Single staircases can double the inefficiency of the building by requiring two staircases.
The time it takes to get projects permits in Los Angeles is a major barrier to affordable housing.
What happens when a building inspector shows up at a property? (1:05:18)
The role of the building inspector in the development process, and how large and small projects are developing in LA.
Key policy notions to consider when setting land use policies.
Developers are competing with owner users and investors to buy properties, and when development regulations cause the amount that developers can pay for a property to go down because of increased development costs, it’s often not the case that land prices go down.
Not all developers are the same.
Focus on the economics rather than the financing. (1:10:17)
Focus on the economics rather than the financing when implementing new policies to promote missing middle, and continue evaluating them five years after implementation.
Preference falsification and preference falsification.
Mark leaves us with a picture of the maltman bungalows, the missing middle project, and Silver Lake.
David shares some tools he has available that might be helpful to jurisdictions.
How do you balance home ownership with missing middle projects? (1:13:51)
How to balance home ownership with producing missing middle projects in California.
The two models of home ownership in California, buy a place and rent units, or become a small mom and pop landlord, and then turn it over to ownership to help more households.
The driving force behind the small lot subdivision ordinance in Los Angeles is the need for common interest subdivisions and single family fee simple subdivisions.
The need for small project subdivision rules that don’t treat a 10 unit subdivision like a 2000 unit new growth subdivision.
Providing more mobility options for housing. (1:19:46)
Transcription of the video
A rough unedited computer-generated transcription of this video will be available if requested. It is not accurate, but is useful to be able to read while listening.