Archinect - News

Multifamily housing starts plunge to 2013 levels, largest gap since 1974

2024-12-09T11:31:00-05:00

Starts of new multifamily apartment buildings in 2024 have fallen dramatically to 2013 levels, according to an analysis of data taken from HUD and the U.S. Census Bureau from the Texas-based Madera Residential. Nationwide, there were a total of 804,000 units under construction by the end of October.

This represents a 19.2% year-over-year decline. The starts-to-completions gap is now the largest its been since 1974, says Madera's Jay Parsons. Overall housing starts were however shown to decrease only slightly to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.3 million in October. (h/t Construction Dive)

A snapshot of 2023's residential construction data from HUD and the U.S. Census Bureau can also be found here.

Multifamily projects took 19.9 months on average to complete in 2023

2024-09-30T18:50:00-04:00

A new report from the National Association of Home Builders has shown the average length of time it takes to complete construction of a multifamily dwelling was 19.9 months in 2023.

The NAHB findings draw from the 2023 Survey of Construction (SOC) from the U.S. Census Bureau, which also notes that buildings of more than 20 units took a longer (22 months) time on average to complete. (Projects of the same size took an average of 19 months to complete before the pandemic.)

Some potential factors could be lagging supply chain issues and lack of construction labor nationwide. According to data from the latest Census Bureau report on the housing market, "Privately-owned housing completions in August were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,788,000."

The reporting can be compared to the latest Dodge Construction Network construction starts data here.

Apartment construction remains at 50-year high in 2024

2024-08-12T17:15:00-04:00

This year will be the first year in U.S. history that more than 500,000 new apartments are constructed, according to a new analysis of the 2024 rental market from RentCafe.

The trend, which is anticipated to abate slightly in 2025, may again resurface by 2028 with exceptions remaining in markets such as Minneapolis and Houston.

Topping the list was the greater New York metro area with 32,935 new units despite the city having permitted its lowest number of new apartments since 2016 last year. Dallas followed closely in second place, with booming Austin, Texas, finishing a distant third. Housing efforts there have struggled to keep pace after demand began to rapidly increase in 2020.

Phoenix came in fourth on the list with 20,141 new units, giving a face to the effects of the construction loophole underpinning its population boom in the face of questions surrounding water scarcity. (Paradoxically, as RentCafe points out, “[a] shift towards sustainability could be one of the reasons...

On the comparative difficulty of family-sized apartment dwellings in North America

2024-05-24T12:04:00-04:00

One major consequence of this difference in design is that the North American double-loaded corridor buildings are much worse at providing family-sized units. To illustrate the point, we’ll go through the different sized apartments one by one, and compare the floor area and design. You’ll notice that the American plans have significantly more floor area for the same number of bedrooms, and have much more lightless interior space up against the common corridor to fill.

Stephen Smith is a former journalist and the Executive Director of the Brooklyn-based Center for Building in North America. His analysis of spatial challenges created by multifamily apartments and zoning conditions was featured recently in Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast. This is an adroit relaying of an issue affecting both developers and architects in pertaining markets and compliments an earlier 2021 report on post-pandemic trends in multifamily residential design from the website Propmodo.

Smith writes: "The merits of North American building and zoning codes can be debated, but the effect is clearly that apartments, in order to provide the same number of bedrooms and give everyone a window, must necessarily consume far more floor area than point access block designs possible in other countries. So if you’re looking for a family-sized apartment in the U.S. or Canada and finding that new buildings don’t have what you’re looking for, it’s not you, it’s not the architect, and it’s not ...

Hotels surmount offices for residential conversion projects for the first time

2024-05-13T13:43:00-04:00

The balance of power in the market for residential conversion projects in the United States has shifted from offices to hotels for the first time, according to new statistics included in RentCafe’s latest market snapshot report for 2023.

Per their analysis of Yardi Matrix data, 4,556 of the 12,700 new apartments that were converted in 2023 were hotels. Office buildings were only slightly behind, with 3,587 converted units, representing 28% of the overall total. New York City led all markets with 733 conversions, followed by Albuquerque and Richmond, Virginia. A total of 151,000 conversion projects are in the pipeline currently across all 50 states, with a 17.6% increase being recorded year-over-year. The number of hotels being converted was up another 38.8% over the previous year.

Gensler Principal Steven Paynter further details office conversion algorithm in podcast sit-down

2023-08-17T14:37:00-04:00

Gensler Principal and Studio Director Steven Paynter sat down recently with financial news service Marketplace.org to detail his firm’s year-old proprietary office conversion metric, a unique tool that has become indispensable as the industry looks to position itself for the mass-scale nationwide surge in the conversion market expected for the coming decade.

Paynter had previously revealed the metric’s surprising findings that only about 30% of commercial buildings have the ideal structural prerequisites (e.g., window depth, floor plates, and ceiling heights), essentially doubling down on his original claims with added details as to the so-called “Goldilocks” zones architects look for when looking at structures for a residential conversion.

“[If] you took a typical floor plate, for example, in those the average unit size for your location or your city, it would divide that unit size by the quarter window depth, so very quickly say, OK, your unit ends up being 25 feet wide and 30 fe...

New statistics detail the coming surge in apartment conversions nationwide

2023-08-10T20:11:00-04:00

New economic reporting compiled by Yardi Matrix suggests that apartment conversions will yield 122,000 or more new units in the United States in the coming years despite a recent turndown that’s been recorded in the market since January 1st.

RentCafe has the latest data analysis to highlight a still-surging trend in the residential sector that has only mildly dampened over the last two years after reaching an apparent peak in 2019 and 2020.

There are now 45,000 units on the way across the country as a product of office-to-residential conversions. Another 10,222 conversions were completed last year, propelled by a 43% increase in hotel retrofits. A total of 3,390 of the conversions were enacted within former office buildings — representing 34% of all conversion project areas nationally.

"Market conditions that favor such projects include significant multifamily demand or government incentives, specifically aimed at promoting historic restoration efforts, the same source shows," Yard...

New York Mayor Eric Adams pitches a case for windowless apartment units in the city

2023-03-24T11:58:00-04:00

Mayor Eric Adams opened a new window into his vision for building New York City out of the current housing crisis, with a riff on “dormitory” style accommodations [...] During a conversation on Monday at the Greene Space, New York Public Radio's live events venue, Adams said he wants to 'do a real examination' of the laws that require windows in bedrooms — a major tweak that could make it easier for developers to convert empty offices into apartments.

The Mayor’s comments in favor of window features found in Dormzilla-like residential design caught the ire of critics, who were quick to illustrate its potential fire hazards and physiological impacts. Adams’ suggestion seems a bit at odds with the city’s push to deliver better affordable housing with 40,000 office conversions and other measures, but are nevertheless in line with several of the recommendations for “flexible regulations“ attributed to the Adaptive Reuse Task Force proposed in December 2022.

According to Gothamist, Adams then also commended WeWork’s flawed housing development model and the widespread adaptation of single-room occupancy (or SROs) constructions that typically have windows but have been dwindling since being made illegal under New York City law in 1955.

Supportive housing advocate and pioneer Roseanne Haggerty told Gothamist they would “...

Frances Anderton says LA must end the stigma of apartment dwelling to survive

2023-01-12T17:38:00-05:00

Anderton’s book provides further powerful evidence that density is not something to be scared of, but is fertile ground for architectural invention, creating more neighbourly, walkable communities, and ultimately making Los Angeles a more livable city for all.

The Guardian’s Oliver Wainwright joined Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles author Frances Anderton for a walking tour of select historic apartment buildings that included Richard Neutra’s 1937 Strathmore Apartments in Westwood (noteworthy as the first apartment Charles and Ray Eames rented after they moved to the city in 1941) and the Irving Gill’s 1910 Horatio West Court, whose new neighbor is a just-finished transitional housing project from Brooks + Scarpa.

“There’s still an ingrained cultural stigma here, that renting an apartment means you haven’t quite made it," Anderton reminds us. The city's broken political culture, meanwhile, isn't making the issue much easier.

The former host of KCRW's popular radio show, DnA, has been a frequent collaborator on Archinect. Anderton joined us in December 2020 on the Archinect Sessions podcast to talk about her career and "the backstory behind her transition from architecture student to journalist to radio personality."

Lis...

Miami was America’s most competitive rental market in 2022, according to new alarming

2022-12-28T17:50:00-05:00

[In] the last two years, looser regulations and the widespread adoption of remote working attracted even more people to settle in the Sunshine State. As a result, newcomers found themselves competing with those who were already hunting for apartments in the area, making Miami-Dade the hottest area for renting in the U.S.

Nationwide, an average of 14 people were said to be competing for each vacant apartment unit, which remained on the market for an average of 32 days. Miami-Dade County was joined by four other Florida rental markets in the top 20 despite adding a total of 34,000 new dwellings within the calendar year in what can be seen as a direct reflection of the state’s migration patterns since the start of the pandemic.

Rents in South Florida were reported to have increased by more than 24% between 2021 and 2022 to an average of $2,841, leading HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge in June to declare the area to be the “epicenter of the housing crisis in this country.”

“Florida’s not going down,” one local developer told WaPo in September. “I would be the first to tell you if we saw it. We get to see it on the front lines, just by the amount of people that walk into the sales center. … I just don’t see it changing.”

...

New data reveals the growing state of adaptive reuse residential conversions nationwide

2022-11-10T17:57:00-05:00

In the last two years, apartment conversions jumped by 25% compared to two years prior. More precisely, this increasingly popular real estate niche brought a total of 28,000 new rentals in 2020-2021, well above the pre-pandemic years of 2018-2019 when 22,300 apartments were brought to life through adaptive reuse.

The new data set from real estate researchers Yardi Matrix gives some additional context to the information in yesterday’s 2022 AIA Firm Survey, which said that almost half (48%) of all projects currently being pursued by U.S. firms involve the renovation, rehabilitation, extension, or preservation of existing buildings.

An analysis of the data (which only concerns residential construction) shows that adaptive reuse schemes more than doubled (10% compared to 25%) the growth rate of new apartment construction in the country since the beginning of 2018.

The figures include an unsurprising 43% jump in the conversion of office buildings into apartments between 2020-2021 and 2018-19, representing some 40% of the whole. Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia are the leading cities for the method, and thus far in 2022, Los Angeles is leading all markets with a total of 1,242 converted a...

Atlanta ranks first for most constructed downtown apartments nationwide over the last decade

2022-09-16T09:00:00-04:00

According to a new study by storage space marketplace StorageCafe, four of the top five most active downtown areas for new apartment construction are in the South, with Atlanta, Georgia ranking first for built downtown apartments over the past ten years. The city yielded over 21,500 apartments over this period.

For this study, StorageCafe assessed the downtown areas of the country’s 100 largest cities and ranked them based on the quantity of multifamily units produced over the last decade. Approximately 391,000 downtown apartments were built across these 100 cities during this time, which is 37% of the total number of multifamily units in these areas. Self-storage development has also risen as a result of this growth in downtown apartments, with Atlanta leading in self-storage space construction over the last ten years as well.

Over the past decade, Atlanta’s downtown apartment inventory increased by 50%. The city is expecting another 7,000 apartments, which are currently under con...

New York City projected to construct the most apartments nationwide in 2022

2022-08-26T14:08:00-04:00

According to a new report by apartment search website RentCafe, New York City is projected to deliver the most newly-built apartments in 2022, claiming the top position for the first time since 2018.

Despite pandemic-induced setbacks in the last two years, New York City is expected to provide a record 28,153 brand new rental apartments by the end of the year. This figure is out of the 420,000 new rental units projected to be completed this year nationwide. It is also nearly 50% higher than the number of apartments that were completed throughout the city in 2021.

Across the United States, the projected new rental units to be built this year represented a historic 50-year peak. According to RentCafe, this construction boom is driven by greater demand for apartments as renters hold off on purchasing homes due to soaring inflation and rising interest rates.

Previously on Archinect: America's largest cities have seen a spike in commercial and multifamily construction starts during fir...

Trellick Tower residents are bracing for a fight against encroaching development schemes

2022-08-11T11:45:00-04:00

“Given the dire shortage of affordable housing in London and the valuable real estate occupied by the Trellick, it is almost certain that someone will build on the site in the future. But residents would like their say. [...] Many fear the build would only attract more developers to the surrounding neighborhood, spoiling the character of the site.”

This fall, residents were able to halt a Haworth Tompkins scheme for a new 16-story tower block in the place of its demolished nursing home that would have obstructed sightlines, a graffiti wall, and exterior views of the Grade II* listed structure. Some units have already been converted into luxury accommodations. Many fear the same privatized fate that befell leaseholders in Ernö Goldfinger’s earlier Balfron Tower is all but inevitable, given London developers’ penchant for leveraging the city’s social rent needs in order to obtain taxpayer-funded contracts.

"All we’ve ever done is stop them for a couple of years," original tenant Keith Benton told the Times. "There’s no guarantee they won’t try again."

Balfron Tower apartments go up for sale; enter Oliver Wainwright

2022-07-26T17:28:00-04:00

Almost 60 years later, Balfron’s streets have been scrubbed up and the residents’ facilities turbo-charged, but the kind of community that Goldfinger imagined has long since been evicted [...] Where once Balfron looked out over declining docks, it now winks across the Thames at the towers of Canary Wharf, whose bankers are a target audience for the new flats, which went on sale this weekend.

A spokesperson for the developer told the Guardian critic that the prospective buyers have mostly been well-to-do architects and design-hip young professionals thus far. Up for grabs is the famed Bond villain namesake Goldfinger’s personal apartment on the top floor, along with the five other preserved "heritage" apartments. Fans of the brutalist icon will have to shell out a pretty (money)penny to get inside its Grade II-listed halls, however: Asking prices for each of the 139 total apartments start at £375,000, or about $451,000.

Related on Archinect: Stock bricks to Brutalism: housing design in Poplar

Wainwright lamented the material choices and functionality of windows included in Studio Egret West's suite of upgrades as well as the newfound lack of views caused by the installation of a concrete balustrade. He also delved into the story behind its sordid ownership transfer. To that score, one "decanted" former resident told him the sloppy turnover was the product of "a political...

BIG and Barcode complete cantilevering residential building on Amsterdam waterfront

2022-07-15T11:39:00-04:00

Work has been completed on Sluishuis, a residential project in Amsterdam by Bjarke Ingels Group and Barcode Architects. The scheme, which comprises 442 homes, a public green roof garden, and maritime jetties, is defined by a cantilevered form meeting at a high corner.

Photograph © Ossip van Duivenbode

The architects describe the project as a “remarkable building with a unique volume that seems to float on the water thanks to the double cantilever.” Towards the water, the building’s untreated aluminum facade rises to meet at the cantilever, creating a gateway to the inner harbor at the building’s core. On the opposite side, the stepped form contains a stairway to the rooftop garden and private residential terraces.

Photograph © Ossip van Duivenbode

The 442 energy-neutral homes, which vary between owner-occupied and rental units, are designed for a variety of income levels and age categories. Typologies include compact studios, water sports apartments, and duplex penthouses. The steppe...

Short-term rentals are putting a record squeeze on renters in the Big Apple

2022-05-20T12:14:00-04:00

The total number of short-term rentals of entire homes in the city’s five boroughs -- those listed on Airbnb Inc. and Expedia Group Inc.’s Vrbo -- is more than 13,000, according to third-party data tracker AirDNA. Meanwhile, rental inventory in Manhattan, Brooklyn and a portion of Queens hovers just over 7,500. The vacancy rate in Manhattan sat at just over 1.5% last month, the second-lowest level on record, according to appraiser Miller Samuel Inc.

Adding to the all-too-familiar notion that short-term rentals have the ability to destroy the livability of a place in its entirety, new data from Douglas Elliman and AirDNA making the rounds today indicate a record-setting shift in the dynamics of urban life as the number of hosted retreats in New York City has surpassed traditional apartment rentals for the first time.

New York’s rental market is in the midst of coming out of the pandemic strong as ever with prices skyrocketing 23 percent to early 2020 levels, fueled in part by an 83.3 percent drop in the total number of rental listings in Manhattan year-over-year. Airbnb responded by saying the findings offer merely “an unfairly narrow look at rental unit availability in a portion of the city,” but the numbers tell a different story. In the last year alone, the stock of available units in the city dwindled by a staggering 16,000 from its 20,743 peak to a new record-low of 4,709.

The end result for renters is sadly predictable as...

Downtown LA leads America in new apartments

2021-11-16T18:41:00-05:00

Highly popular due to their location and vibrant amenities, urban neighborhoods around the country have seen a boom in new apartments in the last five years. In fact, the top 20 most active neighborhoods — led by Downtown Los Angeles — have delivered a staggering 80,000 brand new rental units.

Downtown Los Angeles’ 10,136 new dwellings were followed by a distant second Midtown Atlanta, which had 5,936, and the formerly working-class Hunters Point neighborhood in far western Queens, which trailed Atlanta by a few hundred at 5,423.

Los Angeles is currently looking to add more than 25,000 new units of housing for the homeless by the year 2025, some of which will be placed in the newly rezoned downtown region, which is expected to add at least 175,000 new residents in just under twenty years time.

Neighborhoods in San Jose, San Antonio and Brooklyn also made the top 20. The lack of available housing stock in most markets has meant more and more renters coming on to the market since the pandemic began. The entire rental report can be read here.

AIA offers strategies for retrofitting multifamily housing for pandemic use

2020-08-14T15:38:00-04:00

The latest building adaptation report from the American Institute of Architect (AIA) highlights steps that building owners and designers can take to retrofit existing multi-family homes for pandemic occupation.

Following recently published guides for schools, offices, and hospitals, AIA has issued its latest set of recommendations, titled Strategies for Safer Multifamily Housing, offering "guidance on how to combine new daily habits, the needs of workers, and stringent hygiene regimens with social, infrastructural, and spatial requirements that aim to keep everyone safe."

The guide offers a collection of strategies for bringing stronger safety precautions to multi-family spaces, including reconfiguring shared entry and package delivery spaces, reconsidering "building flow and user experience" from shared entries to elevators and hallways, as well as thoughts on how units themselves might be redesigned to accommodate the crush of overlapping uses that must now take place within the ...

If apartment design is your passion, start your job search here

2020-07-16T18:14:00-04:00

A new 443-unit apartment building designed by David Baker Architects (DBA) was recently completed in San Francisco, filling in a growing section of the city's Design District and South of Market neighborhoods.

The dynamic apartment complex, known as 855 Brannan, sits on a 4.3-acre site and includes 15 "at-grade flex lofts," according to the architects.

Previously on Archinect: "David Baker Architects on Growing a Team-Based, Family-Friendly Practice" Photo: View of the 855 Brannan project's steel panel-wrapped, undulating facades.

It's perimeter block formation is marked by generous landscape designs created by CMG Landscape Architecture that include a row of mature palms and a grove of redwood trees situated within one of the apartment courtyards. Crisscrossed by privately owned alleys, 16,000 square feet of commercial spaces, and other linkages, the metal panel wrapped apartments represent the latest multi-family housing addition by the firm to the city. The market-rate developme...

Homebuilding takes a massive hit from COVID-19

2020-04-16T16:42:00-04:00

A new economic report from the United States Commerce Department indicates that housing construction has been massively impacted by the COVID-19-related economic crisis that is currently gripping the country.

According to the department, the number of construction groundbreakings that took place in March stood at 1.2 million, down from February’s 1.56 million starts. That drop, a 23% reduction, comes after a strong winter quarter for home construction that saw housing numbers rise to relative highs.

According to the latest report, condominium and apartment starts, which were also surging in late-2019, cratered by 32.1%. The grim figures, CNBC reports, represent the worst drop in housing construction activity since March of 1984 when they fell by more than 26%.

Previously on Archinect: “AIA Survey: Residential architecture firms have been hit hard by the COVID-19 economic crisis.” Most residential firms expect to be hit hard by the pandemic’s economic impacts. Graphic courtesy of ...

New York City as the world's biggest apartment

2020-03-09T13:28:00-04:00

Artists Sam Lavigne and Tega Brain and the Whitney Museum of American Art have collaborated to produce New York Apartment 2020, a mesmerizing website experience that "advertises a fictitious New York City apartment for sale that covers more than 300 million square feet and spans the five boroughs."

The piece, which exists as an interactive website, combines thousands of real estate listings into one massive aggregated apartment that features 65,764 bedrooms and 55,588 bathrooms. The mega-apartment clocks in at a cozy 36,672,535 square feet in size.

According to project text showcased on the Whitney Museum website, the artwork "collapses the high and low ends of the market, architectural periods and styles, and neighborhoods and affordability into a single space that cumulatively creates a portrait of New York's living spaces and the real estate market."

Screenshot of New York Apartment 3D virtual tour. Image courtesy of The Whitney Museum of American Art.

For the project, the artis...

Foster + Partners win design competition for co-living project in Shenzhen

2020-02-12T12:27:00-05:00

Foster + Partners has revealed their winning design for the Qianhai Talents' Apartments in Shenzhen, China.

The co-living project is designed for "talents," which are young professionals who engage in a rigorous work-centered lifestyle away from their families. Operating as a dynamic co-living space, the Talents' Apartments capitalize on the use of shared space. Through investigation the design team found that dining was one of the common activities that brings people together in communal settings. While each apartment is equipped with a small kitchenette for basic necessities, primary cooking activities take place in a communal area. Feeding twelve residential units across three levels, this shared kitchen forms a hub where all of the building's residents can gather.

Additionally, amenities such as a clubhouse, wellness and spa center, townhall, and co-working space are situated within the terraced "skygardens" of the tower. "As working pract...

Single-family homebuilding surges to highest levels since before the Great Recession

2020-01-21T18:51:00-05:00

U.S. homebuilding surged to a 13-year high in December as activity increased across the board, suggesting the housing market recovery was back on track amid low mortgage rates, and could help support the longest economic expansion on record. Housing starts jumped 16.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.608 million units last month, the highest level since December 2006.

A report from CNBC highlights the rising fortunes of the American housing market, which saw homebuilding activities increase to record levels in December 2019. According to the report, the number of housing units started in 2019—1.290 million homes in total, including 916,000 single-family units—was up 3.2% over the year prior. The surge has helped to bring the seasonally adjusted annual homebuilding rate up to 1.608 million units, a 16.9% jump from the previous month and the highest level of homebuilding the country has seen since 2006. The number of permits issued dropped 3.9% in December, however, down from a 12-year high the month before.

Housing starts for multi-family housing rose 29.8% last month to 553,000 units while the number of permits issues for these types of units declined 9.6% to 500,000, overall.

L.A. architects are embracing modular multi-family housing

2019-11-18T14:05:00-05:00

Across Los Angeles, architects and developers are embracing factory-built multi-family housing construction across a variety of projects. A selection of recently proposed and currently under construction efforts highlight the fact that while previously limited mostly to single-family projects, modular construction is increasingly being used for larger projects.

In Hollywood, for example, architecture firm Steinberg Hart and developer R.W. Selby & Co. have unveiled plans for a new 202-unit apartment complex that is built using prefabricated modular units.

The development is marked by balcony modules that overlook street-level retail. Image courtesy of Steinberg Hart.

The project, set to be located on a long, narrow site, will feature 14,200 square feet of ground floor retail spaces as well as apartment units marked by projecting covered balconies arranged to express the project's modular construction systems. Urbanize.LA reports that the project will bring a mix of one- and two- be...

Squamish Nation proposes Vancouver's third-tallest tower

2019-11-18T13:10:00-05:00

A 6,000-unit residential development designed by Revery Architecture has been proposed by the Squamish First Nation for 12 acres of tribal lands located in the Vancouver area.

Because the development is being proposed for land that falls solely under the jurisdiction of the Squamish First Nation, it is being designed outside of conventional zoning and land-use regulatory structures. As a result, the project partners aim to have little to no parking associated with the development and are moving to offer all of the units as rental homes, an arrangement that will guarantee a long-term flow of revenue for the Nation, The Vancouver Sun reports.

Image courtesy of Revery Architecture.

Revery Architecture is designing the 11-tower development, which will feature a series of housing complexes grounded by pedestrian retail and shared public spaces. Renderings for the development depict a series of sculptural towers studded with colorful metal scrims and dotted with full-size trees. Unlike ...

Dallas-Forth Worth surpasses Seattle, New York in apartment-building spree

2019-09-10T19:59:00-04:00

This year, Dallas-Fort Worth metro leads with a total of 22,196 new units expected to be built, which will prove beneficial considering the 131,800 new residents that the metro added between 2017 and 2018 (based on U.S. Census estimates).

Although the total number of apartments planned for 2019, roughly 300,000 units, is down from last year, construction for these types of projects has reached a record pace over the last decade not seen since the 1970s and 1980s. RentCafe reports that over 2.34 million apartment units have been delivered nationwide since 2009.

San Diego forges ahead with urban densification plan

2019-08-14T14:30:00-04:00

San Diego approved new growth blueprints Thursday that allow for mid-rise housing and dense urban villages in neighborhoods near new trolley stops in Linda Vista and the northeast corner of Pacific Beach. City Council members said the new zoning will simultaneously help solve San Diego’s housing crisis, reduce carbon emissions that cause climate change and revamp blighted areas where bicyclists and pedestrians face major challenges.

The YIMBY-inspired plan will more than quadruple the number of housing units allowed in areas surrounding a forthcoming $2 billion transit line slated to run through San Diego's northwest quadrant.

Matt Adams, vice president of the local chapter of the Building Industry Association., told The San Diego Union-Tribune, “This is an essential component to addressing our housing crisis.”

Critics of the plan argue that the inclusionary zoning requirements packaged with the increased density bonuses will bring an insufficient number of affordable housing units to the area.

Oregon legalizes "missing middle" housing

2019-07-01T13:50:00-04:00

Oregon legislators took a historic leap toward greener, fairer, less expensive cities Sunday by passing the first law of its kind in the United States or Canada: A state-level legalization of so-called “missing middle” housing.

In a rare show of bipartisan cooperation, both of Oregon's legislative houses have voted to eliminate single-family zoning across the sate, legalizing so-called "missing middle" housing, including duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and row houses.

If signed into law next month by Oregon governor Kate Brown, the bill will allow up to two housing units on all residential lots located within cities that have at least 10,000 residents. For cities of 25,000 residents and up, the bill allows up to four units per lot, including row houses and cottage clusters.

Missing middle housing was largely common in American cities prior to the invention of zoning codes in the early 20th century. In the century since, a pervasive focus on single-family residential areas, coupled with the long-term effects of racial segregation and redlining, has limited housing options for Americans while also eroding a key economic stepping stone for immigrants, first-time homeowners, retirees, and other groups. As a...

Austin says yes to 135,000 new housing units

2019-06-18T13:42:00-04:00

Austin is planning to grow significantly over the next few years. 60,000 new units are planned for the city, to be complete in the next few years, according to KVUE.

This month, the Austin City Council voted to support a new housing plan for the city that could bring up to 135,000 new residences to the Texas capital. According to the plan, up to 60,000 of those new homes will be administered as affordable housing units.

The new plan is focused on bringing housing costs down in the city, where experts have been sounding alarms for years over rampant income segregation.

According to the Austin Chronicle, the city's population has more than doubled since 1990, with a large percentage of the new arrivals enjoying a high degree of wealth. As a result, many low- and moderate-income Austinites have become rent-burdened. The problem matches that of many other American cities: Despite receiving an influx of new residents in recent years, housing production has lagged behind growth rates, ...