By emphasizing smaller buildings, walkability and pedestrian connections to neighborhoods, developers could help solve the state’s housing crunch, architect Kare Parolek argues.
New Hampshire and much of the rest of the nation is missing a key type of housing development, architect Karen Parolek argues, one that could hold promise for solving the state’s persistent housing crunch.
She and her husband, also an architect and her co-founder at Opticos Design, have dubbed it “missing middle” housing and are on a campaign to get more developers building it and towns zoning to allow it.
In brief, “missing middle” homes are small, two- and three-story multifamily buildings, ranging from side-by-side duplexes and the ubiquitous New England triple-decker to 10-unit pre-war, walk-up apartments, she told an audience at a webinar organized by New Hampshire Housing last month. They are built somewhat close together, with lot frontages between 45 and 60 feet, and in places that allow residents to take care of as many errands and daily trips as possible by walking or biking, instead of driving.
“What studies show is that many, many people are actually looking for neighborhood living. They’re looking for the look and feel of small, 2-story walkable neighborhoods where they can walk to the café to hang out with their neighbors,” she said.
Most of all, though, they are inexpensive, with their short heights, house-like construction, lower parking and higher numbers of units per acre helping keep land, materials and labor costs in check, she said.
“The reality is it’s impossible to deliver single-family homes at attainable prices anymore,” she said.
With today’s spiraling production costs, these kinds of homes could represent a viable alternative to the single-family and large multifamily developments typical in New Hampshire, she said.
These lower costs also mean that more people can afford to buy the units at market rates, and developers are able to build units to serve a broader range of people, like retirees and young couples or singles.
To illustrate the benefits, Parolek gave the example of her neighborhood in Berkeley, California, where she lives in a detached single-family home next to a duplex whose units are occupied by multiple generations of the same family. Her son’s kindergarten teacher lives elsewhere in the neighborhood in a triplex with her husband, also a teacher. The building’s other units are also occupied by the teacher’s brother and her mother, who is also a teacher.
“Three teachers living within walking distance from a public school in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country. These are the varieties of housing that provide choices that meet the varying needs of people at different stages of their life and different interests,” she said.
Not Legal in Many Towns
Thanks to rigid zoning codes aimed at promoting single-family housing after World War II, however, “missing middle” housing is impossible to build as-of-right in many places. Only around 10 percent of the homes built in America between 1993 and 2013 fell into this category, Parolek said.
New Hampshire’s towns and cities would greatly benefit from allowing “missing middle” homes to rise in their neighborhoods, she argued, to help defray the cost of services like fire departments and water and sewer infrastructure.
“The way that we’re designing our towns, building on large lots, are actually economically unsustainable,” she said. “It’s increasingly bankrupting towns to be able to afford to support this type of growth.”
Because homes like these are similar in scale to existing single-family buildings, she said, they can be an easier sell to voters than a large apartment complex. In addition, most towns have examples of this “missing middle” housing in their older neighborhoods built before the 1940s.
“We’re not talking about Manhattan. We’re talking about how these towns were originally built,” she said.
Parolek urged local officials to liberalize their zoning codes, including setbacks and density requirements, and allow small multifamily homes to be built as infill developments in existing neighborhoods, commercial corridors where foot traffic can help local businesses and “greyfield” sites like the edges of malls, where slightly larger six-and eight-unit buildings can help buffer single-family neighborhoods from the mall’s size and traffic.
She also urged developers to consider applying “missing middle” principles of more, smaller-scale buildings and walkable connections to shops and services to their own projects, even greenfield ones.
“There’s this huge untapped market and the developers who are [building for it] finding they are really liking it because no one else is building for it,” she said.
Parolek’s entire presentation and a following question-and-answer session are posted on the NH Housing website.
