Margaret Ward recently asked the question: where did the cost of housing go down as a result of building more units?
In short, Minneapolis eliminated minimum parking requirements for new residential developments, which facilitated the increased construction of smaller apartment buildings, such as duplexes and triplexes. Minneapolis also now “allows for larger, denser apartment buildings in more of the city, particularly along commercial corridors and near public transit stops”.
As the executive director of the Metropolitan Area Planning Council noted in the Boston Globe: “The biggest solution to [the housing crisis] is to dramatically expand the supply of [all kinds of] housing and make sure that a significant percentage of those new units are affordable to low- and moderate-income households.”
Damien Croteau-Chonka