A new study from the Metropolitan Council shows that land consumption in the seven-country Twin Cities area is growing for the first time in more than 15 years, even as development is becoming more compact.
The council’s 2020 Generalized Land Use Inventory study, which covers the years 2016 to 2020, notes that single-family construction accounts for nearly two-thirds of all land developed in the region.
Land consumption tends to go up or down depending on the health of the single-family market, which explains why more dirt is being gobbled up now that homebuilders are swinging their hammers again. Through August, cities in the 13-county metro area permitted 4,980 for new single-family homes, a 35% increase from last year, according to the Keystone Report.
At the same time, the urban core is seeing strong growth in redevelopment and infill projects, which means that less land is being used to accommodate the same number of households, council officials say.
The Met Council conducts a land consumption study every five years. The planning body uses the information to “identify land-use trends, assist in forecasting and land supply analyses and enhance planning initiatives,” according to the council.
Lisa Barajas, the council’s community development director, says the current trends tie in with the council’s mission of managing growth and limiting sprawl in the region.
“We’re really pleased to see that the region is demanding a whole lot less land to accommodate the same number of people in households than we had in previous five-year cycles,” Barajas said in an interview.
“That is what we have been seeing [in city planning documents], but then to see it actually happening on the ground is a good metric for us in pushing that core responsibility.”
Slightly more than half of the seven-county metro area’s 1.9 million acres of land is agricultural or undeveloped, according to the study. Residential development accounts for 25% of the acreage and parks take up roughly 10%.
Regional planning bodies and residential builders have often been at loggerheads over land-use policies. While the planners focus on things like limiting sprawl, builders want to see more land opened for development.
For years, builders have urged the council to expand urban services, such as sewer and water hookups, to create more development opportunities.
David Siegel, executive director of Housing First Minnesota, said restrictive land-use policies drive up the cost of land, thus making homes more expensive to build and less affordable to purchase at a time when affordability is a big concern.
“We look at it as land rationing,” he added. “We can debate the merits of urban growth boundaries. But there is no doubt, when you create those urban growth boundaries, homeowners are paying more for raw land” than in areas without those boundaries.
Restrictive land-use policies also cause housing developers to “leapfrog” the growth boundary and look for opportunities in more distant locations, which defeats the purpose of trying to limit sprawl, he added.
Density isn’t a bad thing, but the concept doesn’t apply exclusively to apartments and condos, Siegel said. If part of the goal is to encourage more density, Siegel added, cities can do their part by allowing smaller single-family homes on smaller lots.
“That’s the return to the starter home that we just can’t build these days,” he said.
Among the study’s other key findings: Solar farming accounts for 75% of all new industrial development, and more land has been set aside for parks, trails and other open spaces in recent years.
“That was a really pleasant thing to see,” Barajas said. “That increase in parks open space really supports the council’s policies and I think really reflects the region’s values for having that access to recreation.”
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