I received an email on my last post that pointed out an option I did not address – a few privately owned, multi-unit, larger apartments close to campus. These new units would require modifications to zoning in some specific parts of the city.
They would have a large number of units, in a smaller area, so would meet demand more effectively than attempts – conventional or covert – to modify owner-occupied homes. They would likely offer a range of amenities that single-home conversions would not easily match.
Alterations in zoning, even in a few areas, would make this possible. Lessening of zoning restrictions in some areas might be matched, under this plan, by tightening in others.
(That’s a trade, where I would want to lessen restrictions only.)
There are two quick replies to the large apartment idea, but as I favor even fewer zoning restrictions, they’re not replies that I would make.
(1) There are some who would insist that students reside on campus, and there be no growth of any kind in off-campus student apartments.
(2) There would prove to be a not-in-my-backyard move against any multi-dwelling units, even among some who might relent to zoning changes (however targeted) in principle.
The campus is large relative to Whitewater, and it will not go away. (We would be ruined if, somehow, it did.) It cannot be regulated into place even with severe measures.
If not anywhere, then nowhere; if nowhere, then the present underground market will continue.
Thinking about my original post from 5/13, it focused too much on the limitations of a reclamation effort to take rental properties back to single family housing. Private construction of larger, multi-unit apartments would be an option to satisfy rental demand. That’s a growth option, too.
Here’s an objection to my proposal that new, single-family home construction be encouraged —
Edge-of-city subdivisions that would come with new growth would be undesirable to some homebuyers – they’d want homes like those currently located near the center of the city.
If homes near the city’s center are desirable in their present form, they’ll be on the market for those who want them in that form. If restrictions stifle opportunities for multi-unit, apartment demand, and that demand cannot be met, as it is not being met now, then those homes will remain attractive to multi-unit conversion.
If we have no other outlet for a demand that leads single-family homes in the core of the city being converted into apartments, we’ll not effectively prevent conversion only through zoning to protect those homes from change. Demand will work its will.
If we are to have significantly more single family homes (to bolster school enrollment, etc.), they’ll have to come from new growth. Reclamation would yield far less by comparison. There are well over a thousand more rental units, with rental construction still outpacing owner-occupied construction over these last few years. Changing that trend will require meeting rental demand while expanding new owner-occupied construction. Those new homes may be subdivision-situated, on the periphery of the city, attracting buyers finding them good purchases.