05-01-2023 WS - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

The Aerial Lift Bridge is seen from East 7th Street in Duluth on Thursday. Ben Hovland I MPR News Compact dwellings Duluth has made several changes to its zoning and building policies to foster the development of more "compact dwellings," as Stolpestad prefers to call them. The goal is to meet a huge demand for housing of all types, in all sectors and all categories, said Adam Fulton, Duluth's planning and economic development director. "When you're trying to shape an economy that's good for the entire population, you've got people in different parts of their lives that want different sizes of houses," he said. "And we don't have that in Duluth. Our houses tend to be a little bit older, and a little bit more uniform. Many constructed pre -World War II. And so, our goal here is to create as many opportunities as possible to expand the housing stock." One way the city has done that is to allow developers to build narrower homes on city lots. Three years ago, the city also changed its zoning code to allow what are known as "cottage home park developments," essentially clusters of compact homes grouped together on a single parcel of land. Earlier this year, the city's Housing and Redevelopment Authority broke ground on a project called Fairmount Cottages on the western side of Duluth. It includes 18 small one and two bedroom homes, or "cottages," 620 and 720 square feet, clustered together in two groups of homes, divided by a ravine that's crossed by a pedestrian bridge. It's designed to be a mixed -income development, geared toward families making between 50 and 100 percent of the area median income, up to nearly $80,000 for a family of three. "It really promotes a sense of community," said executive director Jill Keppers. "These houses will actually face inwards; their porches will face the interior of the development. There'll be trails that interconnect them to each other. It'll just be this nice little community where people can really develop that sense of being of being neighbors." A tiny home Duluth's East Hillside neighborhood is seen on Thursday. They are more affordable and efficient in helping the housing crisis. Ben Hovland I MPR News Fulton said the concept is similar to the Milwaukee Avenue Historic District in the Seward neighborhood in Minneapolis. But this type of development is not allowed under many city zoning codes around the state, which encourage more suburban -scale residential development. Fulton said a typical development approach would have only allowed for three or four houses on the site. Aaron Schweiger, managing director of the Duluth -based real estate development company Zenith Asset Management, said there's a stigma around so-called tiny homes that still needs to be overcome. Schweiger said he's approached Twin Cities bedroom communities with projects similar to Duluth's Fairmount Cottages, and said, "`Hey, we'd like to build in your community, we've got this really cool concept: And they tell us 'Thanks, but no thanks."' Schweiger had planned to build a cottage development on a rocky outcropping in Duluth known as the Point of Rocks, but that project is on hold because of an easement dispute with neighbors. He's now working on a different project in Hinckley. A different developer has proposed a similar development in the works in Willmar in west -central Minnesota. Schweiger said developers are increasingly intrigued by tiny home developments because they're less expensive to build than a more traditional apartment building and so they can offer more amenities. "If we build a typical shoebox-style building," he said, "you're talking $250,000 a unit in today's prices — if you're lucky, being cheap — where we could build a tiny home, at cost, for $150,000 a unit." Schweiger believes cities around Minnesota should start to think of compact, smaller homes as creative, affordable workforce housing that can help grow their communities. "You can start a family there. It's not going to break the bank. You get a yard." It's the "American dream" again," he said.