The U.S. is facing a housing crisis, with a shortage of housing nationwide pushing up prices in many markets.
Yes, even in typically low-cost housing markets like Oklahoma, we are facing an affordability issue. When I was on city council in a mid-sized, suburban city, one of our council members proposed an innovative solution of using pre-approved building plans along with overlay districts to allow for different types of housing. These ideas, if implemented, would have had at least some impact on rising housing costs and prices. For a variety of reasons, they failed, and our community is still looking for an affordable housing solution.
A growing list of communities nationwide are starting to adopt pre-approved building plan programs to address the issue. Pre-approved building plans, sometimes called “pattern zones” if they are used in a specific area of the city, allow a city to greatly expedite permitting for a set group of designs, which often are based on the city’s current codes.
At the end of 2021, the Claremore City Council formally adopted an innovative new Uniform Development Code (UDC) and pattern zone concept. Claremore’s pattern zones are a tool that utilizes pre-approved plans for building types based on identified special districts. Guthrie, OK, just announced they were implementing pre-approved plans as well.
According to Guthrie officials, the plans offer two main benefits to applicants. The first is lowered cost. There is no cost to an applicant to acquire the full construction documents because that will already have been conducted and paid for by the city. In addition, the homes are smaller and can be built on smaller lots (original 25’ wide lots) keeping the housing more affordable. The second is increased speed for issuing the construction permit because the only document needing to be reviewed for the permit is the site plan.
There are two main advantages for the city. The first is the expedited development of more housing which is tailored to a more affordable option for the owner or should warrant a more affordable rent for a tenant if built for rentals. The second is the city getting desirable housing that fits within the character of the city’s existing historic neighborhoods. This could be just the “silver bullet” Guthrie has been looking for and I wish them well and hope more cities will explore this innovative solution.
Dr. J. David Chapman is Professor of Finance & Real Estate at The University of Central Oklahoma ([email protected]).