The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. recently hosted a presentation on an often overlooked, and sometimes opposed, solution to combating the country’s housing shortage dilemma: light-touch density.
Light-touch density is sort of a middle ground between building larger multi-unit structures and the traditional single-family home structure. It typically consists of duplexes, triplexes, and even quadplexes that take up the same amount of space that a larger single home would.
For their studies, AEI leaders took a closer look at two areas of the country, suburban Charlotte, North Carolina, and Viena, Virginia, which is part of suburban Washington, D.C.
Charlotte, like many southern metropolitan areas, has seen a boom in population growth since the early 2000s that was not slowed down by the pandemic. Rising prices, lower supply, and elevated mortgage rates have made homeownership more sought after, but also less attainable. Especially to first-time home buyers or younger but growing families looking to expand space.
In Charlotte, the median price for a new single-family home is $465,000.
At the same time, the city has seen massive growth in multi-unit housing such as large apartments and mixed-use developments in practically all urban and suburban communities of its greater metropolitan regions. Such developments do address housing needs but do not allow for home ownership.
“Charlotte is not unique in our housing affordability challenges,” Alyson Craig, city of Charlotte planning director, told AEI. “We have built a ton of apartments, and we have built a ton of family homes. And we have underbuilt duplexes and triplexes.”
In some areas of Charlotte, there is already existing light-touch density. AEI took a closer look at one such area to gather data on what the impact may be if such zoning were allowed across the city.
“We studied, in particular one of those neighborhoods, it was on a street called Pecan and a side street called Kensington,” said Edward Pinto, senior fellow and co-director of AEI.
These areas have older light-touch density zoning that allows 22 living units per acre of property.
“Because of the zoning (of Kensington and Pecan) we compared them to a street two blocks away called The Plaza which allowed five units an acre (but is strictly zoned for only single-family homes),” Pinto said. “What we found is the median home price on Pecan was lower than the lowest priced house on The Plaza.”
Following the study, city officials in Charlotte took notice and passed an ordinance allowing light-touch development city-wide.
The addition of the ordinance is likely to boost supply with units priced in the $350,000 range. Pinto called the numbers in the data seen in the Charlotte study very encouraging.
“If light-touch density were available by right we estimate that nationally over ten years we would add 6.6 million housing units,” Pinto said. “That is a huge difference in terms of having your children and grandchildren being able to live in the area that they grew up. They can live in the same neighborhood, they can live near you because light-touch density is going to provide naturally affordable, naturally inclusionary housing all in the same neighborhood. We cannot expect them to live in our basements.”
Along with Charlotte, AEI studied light-touch density zoning in Viena, Virginia.
Arthur Gailes is senior manager for supply initiatives for AEI and said Viena has legislated out light-touch density housing by steadily changing zoning in favor of single-family home dwellings. He said that as a result, the city has not fared as well as Charlotte in tackling the housing shortage crisis.
Gailes said what they do see in Viena is a trend of building so-called McMansions. Older and smaller homes are being torn down and replaced with homes that have a high amount of square footage but only accommodate one family.
Gailes explained how this impacts the community by using an example in the 300 block of Berry St. SE. One home, built in 1952, has just over 1,500 sq. feet and is valued at $800,000. The home next door replaced a similar home in 2004. The new home has over 4,000 square feet and is valued at $1.4 million.
The city has upped taxable revenue on the street but has done nothing to assist in adding needed living units.
AEI leaders believe light-touch density could be successful in many cities if local governments would get out of the way. They argue that LTD strategies, combined with by-right zoning, are a low-cost, high-yield solution to tacking housing affordability without subsidies.
