Minneapolis Abolished Single-Family Zoning But is That The Answer to More Affordable Housing?

Before you get angry, literally no one — not the interim planning and urban design director nor District 1 Councilman Chad West — is proposing that single-family zoning be abolished citywide in Dallas. 

But one major U.S. municipality did just that, and a few years into the movement that allowed duplexes and triplexes to be built on most residential blocks in Minneapolis, it’s worth taking a look at how it was done. 

Here’s Where Your Dallas City Council Member Stands on Minimum Lot Size Reduction

The Minneapolis 2040 Plan, announced in 2018 and implemented in 2020, positioned the city as the first in the U.S. to abolish single-family zoning. 

The Minneapolis 2040 Plan, a comprehensive land use document akin to ForwardDallas, included several provisions related to denser housing, including abolishing parking requirements and upzoning transit corridors. 

A thorough review of Minneapolis’ housing initiatives is outlined in “A Detailed Look at the Outcomes of Minneapolis’ Housing Reforms — One Final Effort.” 

The document points out that the reforms “made waves around the world of housing policy, with NIMBYs and environmental groups expressing concern about the death of suburbia, and some [Yes In My Backyard]s quickly trying to draw a simple link between the reform and an increase in housing supply.”

Sound familiar, Dallas? 

‘Not the Stuff of Revolutions’

Minneapolis’ pro-housing group Neighbors for More Neighbors was at the heart of one of the biggest land use stories of recent years, a move to legalize triplexes and duplexes wherever single-family homes are allowed, Governing.com reported in May 2022. 

“This so-called single-family zoning ban captured headlines nationwide in 2018,” the article states. “The move is often highlighted by outside observers as a powerfully progressive piece of policymaking that other cities should emulate. St. Paul is now considering a similar policy.”

But the actual number of multifamily units produced since the zoning change is not impressive, the article points out. 

“In the last two years, the number of duplex, triplex, and fourplex units permitted has increased from 13 in 2015 to 53 in 2021 with 2022 on pace for an even higher count,” according to Governing.com journalist Jake Blumgart. “Fourplexes are not covered by the law, but the data does not allow them to be broken out. Not the stuff of revolutions, and certainly not enough to address the larger supply crunch.”

Reason Magazine offered a different take in a 2022 article titled “Eliminating Single-Family Zoning Isn’t the Reason Minneapolis Is a YIMBY Success Story.”

“Housing production is up, and rents do indeed appear to be falling,” the article states. “But the effects of Minneapolis’ particular means of eliminating single-family-only zoning, and allowing up to triplexes on residential land citywide, have been exceedingly modest. Newly legal triplexes and duplexes make up a tiny fraction of new homes being built. Other less headline-grabbing reforms appear to be doing the Lord’s work of boosting housing production.”

Such reforms include rewriting the zoning code and addressing city policies from stormwater management to employment, according to Reason’s Christian Britschgi.

And another silver bullet? Parking reform. Nineteen new developments were approved by the Minneapolis Planning Commission in a short time frame after the city eliminated parking minimums. 

We know from comparisons to Austin and Houston, the latter of which does not have zoning but governs development by ordinance codes, that a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t always effective from city to city. 

Minneapolis had about 425,336 residents in the 2021 Census count, whereas Dallas, the ninth-largest city in the U.S., was approaching 1.3 million. 

Don’t Austin My Dallas? 

City leaders and housing advocates of late have looked to Austin as a leader in taking bold steps toward providing more housing options. 

But if they thought it would be an easy feat to allow “gentle density” including duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes in long-established Dallas neighborhoods, they heard a loud and clear message at a  Dec. 11 meeting of the council’s Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee. 

The discussion on minimum lot size reduction was initiated by a memorandum authored by District 1 Councilman Chad West. 

“This housing discussion, which I proposed in a five-signature memo along with four of my Council colleagues, is a complicated and controversial one,” West wrote in a Dec. 13 email to friends and colleagues. “It’s important to note that the five-signature memo I drafted only asks staff to OPEN the DISCUSSION on reviewing Dallas’ 1950s- and 1960s-era single family lot sizes and on how neighborhoods could be impacted (negatively or positively) by allowing gentle density such as duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes.” 

Some council members responded in the December meeting by accusing staff of proposing the demise of single-family neighborhoods. It appears a majority of the Dallas City Council — and the residents of Dallas — are opposed to citywide changes but may be open to addressing higher density and minimum lot size reduction in undeveloped areas or parts of the city where multifamily housing is lacking. 

Zoning reform is a good place to start in adding more diverse housing options, according to the Minneapolis “One Final Effort” article. 

“It is becoming increasingly clear from a growing body of international evidence that zoning reform can increase housing supply and lower rents,” the article states. “.Auckland has received significant attention in recent years for its’ successful upzoning initiatives. California has also made news for its’ Builder’s Remedy, which may lead to a huge intake of new dwellings, although the impacts of this are still early and somewhat unclear.” 

Dallas Takes One Bite at a Time

As Dallasites embark on a new year full of ambition and holiday cheer, we anticipate a full slate of meetings to delve into how to solve the city’s affordable housing crisis once and for all. 

Former Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Director David Noguera used to say that addressing a massive challenge was like eating an elephant “one bite at a time.” 

Dallas Leaders Tasked With Tackling Comprehensive Housing Policy ‘One Bite at a Time’ 

Some low-hanging fruit could be tackled by addressing federal housing programs that developers say are costly and restrictive. 

Assistant City Manager Majed Al-Ghafry introduced a solution by memorandum last month that the council will likely discuss in the coming weeks. 

A plan already is in place to streamline existing home repair and financial assistance programs

The more pressing, bigger-picture matters of parking reform and minimum lot size reduction will likely be hot topics as the ForwardDallas comprehensive land use plan update goes into its final review this year. 

ForwardDallas is scheduled to go before the City Council in June.