Early this summer, Kirkwood released the fruits of a multi-year effort to study the extent of our attainable housing crisis and propose some solutions for how to fix it. That effort, known formally as the Attainable Housing Study , was developed by PGAV and URBRNRX, presented to the Council for comment and review, and ultimately published in June.
The study offers significant statistical backing to the idea that Kirkwood housing production has not kept pace with demand to live in the community, and documents the myriad of ways the exclusivity of Kirkwood has grown as a result. It also offers numerous suggestions for how we might begin to reverse the situation. Below are some highlights of the study and an examination of its solutions.
In short, I think the study provides a great start to an important conversation, but I also think it gets some things woefully wrong, especially in the antidotes it offers. But before we take a look at the policy recommendations, let’s take a look at how the study goes about the task of convincing stakeholders that an intervention is warranted.
Defining the Problem
The first 67 pages of the 88 page long study provides quantitative and qualitative analysis of Kirkwood’s current housing market. This analysis touches on our current zoning, demographic trends, current housing stock, and compares Kirkwood with four other peer municipalities selected for their similarities to Kirkwood: Webster, Clayton, Creve Coeur, and Maplewood.
The statistics show, over and over again, that housing in Kirkwood is expensive (often accounting for over 30% of a household’s, HUD’s definition for “rent burdened”) and is steadily getting more expensive. It further supports our long-standing thesis that the source of that phenomenon is that increases in demand to live in Kirkwood are out-pacing any increases in the supply of new homes being built here. This leads people to enter into bidding wars to attain one of the limited number of spots (read: homes) in the community, and prices rise as a result.
I think everyone knows this basic phenomenon, but two pieces of the analysis stood out to me as effectively new.
The first comes from a section that looks at the burden our housing supply puts on different professions:
Daycare Worker
Income – $15,000 to $35,000
75% Single
Daycare workers provide an essential service to working families by providing childcare and early childhood education for children under the age of 5. On average, a daycare worker in Kirkwood can expect to earn between $12 and $15 per hour, which equates to a $24,000-$30,000 annual income. To keep housing costs under 30% of household income, households at these earning levels should pay no more than $675 monthly, equivalent to an $82,000 mortgage. In November 2022, there was no available rental or for-sale housing at or below this price point.
At Kirkwood Kindercare, Assistant Director Sarah Piotraschke reports that only 12% of their 42 employees live in Kirkwood. Of those that are able to live in Kirkwood, only one lives on their own while the other four are in their early 20s and live with their parents.
This suggests that housing in Kirkwood is unattainable to daycare workers who care for Kirkwood children.
Librarian or Teacher
Income – $50,000 – $75,000
50% Single, 30% Married / No KidsAn elementary school teacher in the Kirkwood School District makes on average $66,129 in annual compensation. Affordable housing costs would be $1,625 per month. At this income, a $200,000 house would be the maximum affordable home to allow them to remain under the 30% threshold. In November 2022, there was 1 home available on the market at this price point, and 41 apartments. This group often includes single individuals or married couples with no kids that is more interested in a small home or rental option. Often though, this group is planning for the future and would like to settle in the community more permanently, requiring additional long-term planning for future housing availability.
-Kirkwood Attainable Housing Study, P. 23-24
I think this is really effective for a couple of reasons. First, it puts a (a very sympathetic) face to a housing crisis typically rendered in impersonable statistics. Second, it shows that the well-being of Kirkwood’s residents and their amenities they have access to are directly tied to attainable housing. If you want to be able to recruit good teachers, daycare workers, police and firemen, then you need to want it to allow more housing to be built too.
The second section of the study I found to be revealing was the portion that looked at the attitudes and suggestions of various Kirkwood stakeholders held towards housing and potential related policy changes. Here are a few notable ones
Developers suggested that two big changes that would increase how many homes they could develop at a specific (lower) price point were:
- Revising height limitations to measure by stories instead of feet (a change that was recommended long ago by PGAV but never adopted by Kirkwood for unknown reasons)
- Decreasing required parking in key areas (something I’ve recommended in both my piece on Transit Oriented Development for Downtown, and my Grant’s Trail pieces where I recommend we rezone the area from Industrial to B-GT with lower parking requirements given the investment we’ve made in cycling infrastructure there)
The feedback offered by residents was decidedly more mixed. When asked to put a tally by what kind of housing they thought Kirkwood needed more of, single family homes came out the clear winner, (although I think the caveat provided by the study, that “the vast majority of participants indicated they would like to see more of the housing type they live in,” is important context).
I wish the study had endeavored to ask the public for their thoughts on specific policy changes so we had a sense of which are potentially workable and which are non-starters, but the closest we get is a reprisal of a study conducted in 2019, which the new study is careful to note “was focused almost entirely on residential design and did not ask questions about affordability, market conditions, or other factors that influence the overall housing picture in Kirkwood but was conducted in an effort to understand resident sentiment as the Zoning Code review process began.” Still, I think that 2019 survey offers important context and shows how big of an up-hill fight we’re facing (while also giving me some hope on the workability of ADUs). Here’s this year’s study on some of the conclusions from the 2019 survey:
Support for more regulation
Nearly 67% of respondents indicated they would like to see increased site design standards including setbacks, building heights, first floor heights, and lot coverage. Just 23% indicated that the current standards should be maintained, and less than 10% would like to see reduced standards. Similarly, when asked about architectural design standards, 67% of respondents would like to see clearer and mandatory guidelines for new single-family homes that focus on visual compatibility with neighboring homes. Twenty-five percent indicated the current standards should be kept, and just 8% recommended eliminating them. Opinions were split on whether or not to require the use of similar building materials for new construction. When asked to consider a variety of regulations and their relative importance, the top issue or first priority was placed on lot coverage and Floor Area Ratios by far. This was followed by side yard setbacks regulating distance between homes and front-yard set backs which measure the distance between the home and the street. Other issues, in order of priority, included the height of the house, rear-yard setbacks, setbacks for accessory buildings, and height of accessory buildings.Enhance current review process
There was strong support for enhancing the current Architectural Review Board (ARB) process, allowing this group to make their decisions mandatory for single-family developers rather than simply advisory as it is currently.
Interest in allowing Accessory Dwelling Units
Over 73% of respondents indicated support for allowing Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) in the City. Nearly 27% did not support this concept. No further questions were asked about regulations of ADUs but this high level of support was a component of the inclusion of ADU legislation in the 2021 Zoning Rewrite. Ultimately, this survey indicated resident support for more regulation and more city control over the site layout and design of residential construction in Kirkwood. The survey did not include demographic indicators other than homeownership status so it is not known what type of housing, life-stage, tenure in the community, or other demographic factors may have influenced the opinions of respondents. Informal conversations have taken place at City Council Meetings, Planning and Zoning Commission meetings, and with City Staff related to the attainable housing discussion, prompting the Attainable Housing Study.
-Kirkwood Attainable Housing Study, P. 52
Recommended Policy Fixes
All told, the study recommends a list of nearly 20 housing policy fixes we might make to bring about greater attainability. Some of them are good and I’m confident we can get them done, others are good and I’m less confident we can get them done, still more couldn’t hurt but I’m skeptical they’ll accomplish much, and some are just plain bad. Here’s where I think each recommendation fits:
The Good…
- Waive FAR regulations for existing property owners who fulfill lot coverage requirements
- Allow ADUs on lots of 10,000 square feet or more
- Remove the additional parking-spot requirement for ADUs if the property already has at least two off-street parking spots
- Reduce setback requirements for ADUs
- Remove the $1,000 nonrefundable special use permit fee for ADUs for owner-occupied properties
- Investigate the possibility of creating pre-approved ADU designs that could be utilized by residents or developers to streamline the approvals process
- Allow greater density based on the number of units affordable
to 80% AMI households
So as I’ve mentioned before in my piece all about ADUs, I really think they’re our best bet to achieving any sort of attainable housing at scale in Kirkwood. ADUs have several desirable qualities as an attainable housing solution. They’re small and are either rented or are occupied by family members or friends at no cost, so they’re naturally affordable, and they also spread affordable housing over all of Kirkwood rather than concentrating it in one place, meaning that the impact of additional traffic is also dispersed. Finally, ADUs, unlike other forms of attainable housing, directly return the value of housing to current homeowners (in the form of supplemental income from rent and higher property values), making them, at least in theory, popular amongst people that might be otherwise inclined to take a more NIMBY approach. This, and the fact that ADUs were the one major exception to the otherwise very hostile to density results of the 2019 Residential Design Survey mentioned above make me think that they should be attainable housing priority 1a.
But despite ostensibly legalizing ADUs in 2021, Kirkwood has seen very little actual production of units under that provision. That’s largely due to the hydra of overlapping burdensome regulations that essentially makes them impossible to build. I think these amendments would go a long way toward fulfilling that 2021 action. I also would’ve liked to have seen the removal of the provision that the main residence of ADU properties (the primary house) be owner occupied, as it removes flexibility and makes financing ADU projects much more difficult.
I also think the last bullet point about a density bonus is a really good idea. People have expressed hostility to density, but they typically do so in the face of an actually tangible project, not a technical zoning text amendment. Getting some explicitly affordable units in Kirkwood set aside for those making less than the area’s median income would be a huge win for diversity and affordability in Kirkwood, while simultaneously tackling the root cause of the issue: we’re not building enough homes.
The Good (if we can get it done)…
- Permit rowhomes, townhomes, or duplexes in more parts of the City
- Provide a density bonus to developers based on the number of larger units in a multi-family building
- Market key development sites in Downtown Kirkwood to facilitate new multi-family development with a mix of unit sizes and price points
So these recommendations are all also really good, but I’m a little more skeptical they’re political winners (two-family homes failed in Webster Groves/people seem pretty hostile to density as I mentioned, and Kirkwood City Council has so far failed to issue a Request For Proposals on any city-owned lots downtown despite repeatedly being urged to do so), but we absolutely should try.
The Fine…
- Partner with an organization to provide property tax assistance to existing residents, allowing them to stay in their homes
- Partner with existing organizations to connect residents to additional funds to pay for home maintenance and modifications to increase accessibility
- Evaluate and revise policies that would encourage more landlords to accept Housing Vouchers in the City
- Offer HomeScreen or another similar tenant screening program via the City website to encourage high quality rentals and long-term tenants in the City
- Work with current property owners in Meacham Park to facilitate new housing development on vacant land
- Support the establishment of a Community Land Trust Commission with representation from the City of Kirkwood, potential partnering organizations, and interested area residents. Encourage residents to contribute their real estate (or sell for a discount) to the Community Land Trust
- Create a page on the City’s website that explains the steps toward adding an addition or ADU to an existing property, encouraging home renovations and additions as opposed to relocating
These all seem fine to me, some of them might even yield some affordable units, but none of them take on the basic shortage of homes that is at the heart of the issue. Even if we made a community land trust, for example, we’d still be limited by the zoning code in how many units we could put on the land in the trust. In doing so, a couple of families who can’t afford to live in Kirkwood currently might come out ahead, but we haven’t made the pie any bigger so there have to be losers too, and the losers are often, unfortunately, going to be those right on the margin of being able to live in Kirkwood who have now lost their home to someone making slightly less than them. There is some redistribution in this move so I don’t know that it’s inherently bad, but I don’t think it’s all that great either. The other stuff in here just feels pretty marginal.
And the Ugly…
- For any new multi-family housing development of 20 or more units, require that 10% of units are affordable (less than 80% AMI)
- Investigate the possibility of establishing an Affordable Housing Fund, with a requirement to contribute for housing developments over 12 units
These last two, I think, are really dangerous and stand to make the problem worse rather than better. Despite the fact that the first 50 pages of the report say we need more homes in Kirkwood, these last two “solutions” would increase the cost of building multifamily homes ensuring fewer get built. That makes no sense on any level. It makes no sense why we’d have hard cutoffs like 12 or 20 units (thus incentivizing people to build 11 or 19 units) rather than a gradual scale, it makes no sense why we’d charge multi family housing but not builders of McMansions. But even if you changed those provisions, it would still lead to less housing being built rather than more. It shrinks the pie (but sure, celebrate the fact that a small piece of that shrunken pie takes housing from the person who can barely afford to live in Kirkwood and gives it to someone else making slightly less. Congratulations! You solved it!)
Politics as Vocation
In the coming hours (literally), days, weeks, and months, advocates for housing attainability will need to develop a strategy for how they want to lead the horse that is City Council to the water that is affordable homes. In doing so they must remember that they have already been convinced that attainable housing is an issue of paramount importance that justifies the strongest possible policy action. The public at large, however, remains at least partially skeptical. We must, then, work within the constraints of that skepticism to get the best deal we can for as many people as we can.