What’s Up, SLUP

Recently, my colleague Patrick Tuohey wrote about the new Housing Supply Accelerator Playbook (HSAP). In his blog post, he discusses how this guide-when used with a free-market perspective-can be useful in increasing the housing supply and improving the condition of existing homes in certain cities.

This playbook has been released at a convenient time for the City of St. Louis-the city is currently overhauling its Strategic Land Use Plan (SLUP). The current SLUP was adopted in 2005 and has seen 23 amendments since. It suffices to say that the document is dated. The city intends for the new plan to be adopted by the planning commission by the end of 2024.

There are some benefits of having strategies in place to guide future land use and development of a city. However, cities also must be careful about avoiding central planning. The city outlines its guiding values for the SLUP, the first of which is "quality of life." Are there ideas in the HSAP guide that St. Louis could use to realize this goal?

To improve quality of life, the goal should be to make the city a place where people want to live, work, and build. Increasing the supply and diversity of housing available can help work toward this goal. How can this be achieved? By simplifying the regulatory landscape. While the SLUP will not change the zoning code on its own, it will inform future updates to the zoning code, and these updates should incentivize development and lower costs, not the opposite.

Specifically, two potential reforms are decreasing or eliminating parking minimums and authorizing accessory dwellings. Parking minimums are mandates that require a set number of parking spaces in a new development. Many U.S. cities are reducing their parking minimums and finding that decreases the cost of new housing and offers other benefits, including making their cities more walkable. Accessory dwelling units (ADUs)-additional living spaces or dwellings on the lot of a larger home-are also gaining traction. Take for example the City of Seattle, which has allowed ADUs since 2019 and is experiencing strong growth in this form of housing. Both changes have the potential to increase the housing supply to meet residents' needs and support the city's goal of increasing quality of life.

Anyone can provide public input regarding the City of St. Louis's plan by completing a survey on the SLUP website. This is an opportunity for residents to emphasize the importance of not stamping out market forces that will spur housing supply. Hopefully, the plan will advocate simplifying codes and decreasing costs.