This is part one of a three part series on housing. In this post I seek to quantify and contextualize the extent of Kirkwood housing situation, and explain its importance. In the accompanying companion pieces I will first examine the current politics of the issue within Kirkwood and offer suggestions for reform. In the third story I will suggest a specific development proposal that could help alleviate the pressure.
The Problem in Context
So what’s the big deal about housing? Generally in America there are considered to be two different housing problems: Problem A, which primarily plagues the coasts, and Problem B, which primarily effects rust belt cities. In Problem A, a scarcity of housing causes rents to be so high that even relatively well off people can’t afford to live there. In Problem B there’s plenty of real estate (how much unused housing exists in St. Louis?) but people are just too poor in general to be able to afford it without it consuming a disproportionate amount of their income or the housing is concentrated in areas unsafe and without opportunity (read jobs/school districts). While St. Louis in general falls into problem B, I would argue the Kirkwood housing crisis in general falls into Problem A. How so you might ask? I mean, Kirkwood has houses, and it has apartments, and it has condos too. And, if you’re reading this, you likely can afford to live in Kirkwood yourself.
And yet I would argue that in the housing game, Kirkwood is to St. Louis what San Fransisco is to America. People in the St. Louis area want to move to Kirkwood in a similar dynamic to the way people across America want to move to San Fransisco. Obviously our 1 bedroom average rent isn’t San Fran’s $3,706, but proportionally speaking (adjusted to our region’s average income), it’s probably pretty close. Last year Kirkwood added 104 residents, the 4th highest total out of any municipality in St. Louis County. While growth of any sort is a positive, the rate of growth is clearly not where it needs to be. A lot more than 104 people in the St. Louis area have a desire in any given year to move to Kirkwood, the difference between that desire and 104 is our housing shortfall.
Between 1976 and 2019 Kirkwood lost approximately 4,440 residents (a little less than 14% of its population). Sure,some of this change is a result of falling fertility rates leading to smaller families and thus fewer residents per unit of housing. But even if this point is granted, (and I would argue that there is no way that it is the entire reason), it further serves to prove that Kirkwood’s big enough, and has the infrastructure to serve a significantly larger population. Whether you’re a social justice oriented person, or someone who believes in the unsurpassed efficiency of markets, I think there is a strong case to be made to you for more housing. But enough with the platitudes, let’s throw out a number: Irregardless of your end of the political spectrum I think it should be our shared goal for Kirkwood to add to its housing stock with the goal of reaching a population of 32,000 by 2026, meeting and surpassing the 1976 mark exactly fifty years later.
Advantages of Housing
For most home owners in the United States, home equity is their primary form of investment and savings so people are rightfully protective of their property values. My mission is to convince you that Kirkwood being expensive to live in is a bug not a feature; that more people living in Kirkwood is not only good for perspective residents but also for existing ones. Here are seven ways inclusionary zoning works for everyone:
1. Access to Good School Districts
If I were to guess, the number one reason people move to Kirkwood is so that their children can attend Kirkwood schools. People should be able to send their children to good school districts. Kids deserve a good education. every time we deny an apartment or a condo, we deny kids access to that quality education. And yet people deny others that opportunity all the time.
2. Closer to Jobs, Better for the Earth
Kirkwood is home to many offices and restaurants and schools and boutiques. Many people work at or own these businesses. Generally, people prefer short commutes to long ones. The average Duffy’s waiter is unlikely to be able to afford to live in Kirkwood so they commute from further out. This commute in turn leads to greater traffic, greater car emissions, and when they park their car and head into their job, they occupy a parking spot. Not an ideal scenario.
3. Added tax base
Developing under developed properties adds to Kirkwood’s tax base which in theory leads to expanded services. While property tax does not completely offset the cost of educating a student in the Kirkwood school district, the exact dynamic depends on how many of the added residents end up attending Kirkwood schools. Adding a demographic of residents who skew towards being childless or skews towards attending private schools, a question that largely depends on the formatting of the added housing (price-point and number of bedrooms), could potentially mean a net gain to school funding through property taxes while the opposite could lead to a net loss.
4. Increased Customer Base
The more people that live near PJ’s or Bar Louie or Kirkwood Hardware, the more customers available to spend money at and thus support these businesses. Not only are existing Kirkwood institutions supported but new businesses are also attracted.
5. Diversity
The more housing you have and the more housing you have at accessible price, the more likely a place is to be home to a diverse group of people. St. Louis is home to the third fastest growing foreign-born population largely because of its affordability, if Kirkwood wants to benefit from this trend my first suggestion would be to add to its housing stock. As Kirkwood gentrifies the socio-economic profile of its residents become more homogenic. Diversity is good, even for those who aren’t diverse. Diversity in schools prepares kids for life outside their suburban bubble, diversity in population leads to less group think, more diverse perspectives and more diversity in businesses.
6. Increased Services
MODOT plans routes (theoretically) around areas most likely to utilize their services. The higher the population density, the more people who live within walking distance of a public transit stop, the more likely those residents are to use that public transit. This question of density is why public transit works much better in Paris than it does in Los Angeles. MODOT rearranges their routes and stops all the time, the next time they do, the more density Kirkwood has, the more likely Kirkwood is to gain services instead of lose them.
How Exclusionary Zoning Works
So, if you buy that housing is ultimately good and that we’re ultimately not building enough of it, the question becomes, why not? Who or what is to blame? It largely boils down to a few related issues within the overarching category of “exclusionary zoning”. Exclusionary zoning essentially refers to development rules that cities have put in place that artificially lower the maximum amount of housing allowed in their boarders. These rules manifest themselves in four ways: Limiting multi-family housing, requiring a minimum amount of parking per development, limiting the maximum height of new developments, and through an over abundance of historic preservation.
Limiting multi-family housing
The limiting of multi-family housing developments manifests itself in a few ways but perhaps the most overlooked is the way in which it encourages people to further upgrade their existing homes further pricing up the existing housing stock. While Kirkwood might seem like it has a decent amount of multi-family housing, when we look at the numbers, multi-family housing is only allowed on approximately 1/15th of square milage of land. An even lower percentage is actually used for multi-family.
Minimum Parking Requirements
Developers of housing want to make money. They make money when people buy the housing they develop. People buy housing when the amenities offered have more value than the cost to rent or buy the residence. In the case of parking Kirkwood has decided to override this dynamic by deciding they know better than the developers, renters and buyers by setting a minimum number of parking spaces required per unit of housing developed. Every parking space that is built over and above the amount that residents actually want is a market inefficiency. That extra space that is used for unneeded parking could otherwise be used to build extra units of housing. In most cases in Kirkwood the minimum amount of parking required is probably not that far off from what would otherwise be built but in a few cases, cases in which the targeted buy drives less because of age or in which the housing is located near good public transit, the amount of parking required out paces the amount that is needed.
Maximum Height
If you were to poll residents of Kirkwood on whether or not they would support a 12 story apartment building in downtown Kirkwood, the vast majority would respond some version of “absolutely not”. People like quaintness of Kirkwood and even if I disagree, I do understand it. The thing is, though, that a pretty high level of density can be achieved with all buildings falling under five stories. Paris for example has achieved a population density nearly twice that of New York City (and almost 18 times that of Kirkwood) almost entirely without sky scrapers. The current law allows B-4 (the zoning designation of all of Downtown Kirkwood) buildings to have a maximum of 40ft without retail and 60ft for mixed use buildings. There was a push to slightly liberalize the height restrictions in Downtown Kirkwood based on DPZ’s suggestions by changing the maximum height from a maximum number of feet tall to a maximum number of stories (approx 4 stories for buildings of a single use and 6 stories for buildings that were mixed use) of indiscriminate height but the bill (10690) unfortunately met some resistance and has been tabled indefinitely by the council. Pretty incredible to pay $120,000 for a study by one of the country’s leading planning consultants and then ignore their advice.
Historical Preservation
Historical preservation keeps housing from being built by adding red tape to the development process and almost exclusively protecting large, single family homes with big yards, not exactly ideal for density.
While individual buildings are nice to preserve, no one’s tearing down Mudd’s Grove, I am extremely skeptical of entire preservation districts as seen above. This isn’t effing Williamsburg, VA.
Up Next
This is the first part on a three part series on housing in Kirkwood. Up next will be a story on policy changes Kirkwood could make to help alleviate the crisis followed by a specific proposal to add to develop a much under utilized portion of Kirkwood and regain a huge chunk of population. Stay tuned!