From Gas Meters to Paris: A Case for Dense Housing

Allowing dense, multi-family housing to be built everywhere by right is the most impactful step the City of Grand Rapids—or any city—can take to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.¹ Last summer, I completed my largest development project to date: four attached single-family townhouses. I wish I could have built multi-family, but this was the furthest the zoning code allowed me to go. I am proud of the result, and many neighbors have been kind with their compliments.

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But the story doesn’t end with neighbors appreciating an investment in their neighborhood. A crucial lesson in energy efficiency is hidden in the gas meters on the side of the townhomes after the first winter. I kept all four identically sized units at the same temperature. The two exterior units, with three walls exposed, used 65% more natural gas than the interior ones, which only had two small exposed walls and shared warm walls on either side with other units. 😲

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The exterior units averaged 219 McF of natural gas, compared to 133 McF for the interior units—a dramatic difference in energy consumption. This is an example of what a 2011 paper proved: multi-family housing is more efficient than single-family attached housing, which is more efficient than single-family detached housing. (108 vs. 89 vs. 54 million BTUs used per year, respectively)²

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Last Thursday I attended the final community input session for the Grand Rapids’ Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP).³ They identified the city’s top three sources of emissions—buildings, transportation, and industry—and outlined strategies to reduce them. Yet, the Residential Homes section overlooked the elephant in the room: single-family homes are both the most expensive and least efficient form of housing while simultaneously being the only housing type legal to build on 75% of residentially zoned land. 🐘 The graph above shows that moving from a single-family home in a conventional suburban development to a multi-family home in a transit-oriented development slashes one’s total energy by 60% (240 million BTUs per year to 95).

Gary Keller, in “The One Thing” distills his success down to asking himself the following question and acting upon the answer:

What’s the one thing you can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

For cities serious about addressing climate change, that “one thing” is simple: legalize dense, multi-family housing everywhere. NOW! We have no time to waste! 🏢>🏠

Our zoning code mandates setbacks and green space requirements that waste over half of our residential land, forcing lower density and making it impossible to support essential businesses within walking distance. This land-use pattern prioritizes cars and parking over people, trapping us in a cycle of inefficiency and sprawl. Meanwhile, 60% of Grand Rapids’ housing stock is over 60 years old, built with 2x4 walls and little to no insulation. Retrofitting helps, but legalizing dense housing could make replacing these inefficient homes financially feasible for developers, leading to energy-efficient buildings that meet modern codes. Rarely does it make financial sense to demolish a single-family house to replace it with another single-family house. But replacing one housing unit for eight might. Not recognizing the harm we’re self-inflicting upon ourselves by not allowing dense housing is a huge miss. Choosing not to stop the self-harm once identified is just dumb. 😞

Density solves more than energy efficiency. 10,000 people per square mile is the rule-of-thumb for achieving a dense city. That density supports high-quality public transit and walkable amenities. Grand Rapids? We’re less than half that at 4,369 people per square mile. The solution isn’t more space—it’s better use of what we already have.

Take Paris, for example, which is roughly the same size as Grand Rapids but houses ten times the population. How? By prioritizing dense, mixed-use buildings with zero setbacks, typically 6-7 stories tall. Many Parisians don’t even need cars—about a third don’t have a driver’s license—because public transit and neighborhood amenities meet their daily needs.

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The CAAP mentions many actions about incentivizing others (primarily developers) to take action while ignoring the most powerful tool the City already fully controls and conveniently costs $0 to use: regulating land-use. If we stop making density illegal, we will naturally lower emissions as a side-effect of more efficient land use. Strategies are often evaluated using a 2x2 matrix to measure impact and cost. It’s rare to find one that is both high impact AND low-cost, but when such opportunities arise, they are invaluable and should be implemented immediately. Additionally, dense housing results in an increased tax base, enabling the City to provide the services that residents desire, so this strategy has a negative cost, meaning our City makes money by making things better!

Allowing dense, multi-family developments by right across Grand Rapids would slash GHG emissions in two ways: first, by cutting building energy use through shared walls, and second, by making it easier for people to live without cars. Walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods mean fewer trips in cars and more options for sustainable transit. Even if you love driving, fewer cars on the road is a win for everyone. That’s something with which pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers can all agree.

Legalizing and incentivising dense housing isn’t a silver bullet, but it’s as close as we’re going to get. It’s a costless zoning change with the power to reduce emissions, support walkable neighborhoods, and create a more vibrant city. Let’s stop self-sabotaging our climate efforts and start building the Grand Rapids of the future—efficient, dense, and full of life!

2/20/24: I emailed this feedback to GR’s Chief Sustainability Officer Annabelle Wilkinson who is the CAAP point-of-contact on their website and she quickly informed there is a land use section, but it was in the Transportation and Vital Streets section instead of where I expected in the Healthy Homes or Buildings & Industry sections. So, a big WHOOPS on my part. 😳😅🤷 If you navigate to pages 72-73 you get the strategy and actions below. I’ll comment my suggested tweaks after since she did ask if I had any additional suggestions.

Strategy 5: Focus Land Use Practices on More Accessible, Dense and Less Car Centric Neighborhoods ∞

• Action 1: Allow a greater variety of housing types in low-density residential zone districts. ∞
• Action 2: Allow higher density residential in the Mid-Century and Modern Era neighborhoods where adequate transportation infrastructure is provided. ∞
• Action 3: Support infill development at an appropriate scale ∞
• Action 4: Update the zoning ordinance to encourage density in mixed-use areas along transit corridors that serve residents and businesses ∞
• Action 5: Establish Mobility Hubs that connect neighborhoods, employment centers, and public transportation systems ∞
• Action 6: Reassess parking requirements for new developments and limit the size of surface parking lots ∞
• Action 7: Prioritize walkability and bikeability in new development and roadway projects
• Action 8: Require a plan to encourage people to use modes of transportation other than driving alone when large developments are proposed within identified nodes. ∞

The “∞” symbol represents overlap with the Grand Rapids Community Master Plan (CMP). Most of these seem like good suggestions, but I recommended tightening them up a bit with the following tweaks:

• Action 1: Eliminate the Low-Density Residential/Medium-Density Residential (LDR/MDR) delineation and allow greater density everywhere in Compact Neighborhoods. (The proposed language “low-density” doesn’t exist in the CMP. The only two residential classifications are Compact and Suburban Neighborhoods.)
• Action 2: Allow higher density residential in the Suburban Neighborhoods where adequate transportation infrastructure is provided.
• Action 3: Support infill development by eliminating greenspace and density requirements, shrinking sideyard and rear setbacks, and increasing the height limit to 3.5 stories in residentially zoned districts. (this is how you support infill development at an appropriate scale, so let’s be explicit. See my blog post here for more details.)
• Action 4: Update the zoning ordinance to allow more mixed-use areas within neighborhoods, so people can walk/bike instead of driving for the things they need. (“Complete Neighborhoods” require amenities sprinkled into residential areas, otherwise, we’ll never be able to change our car culture.)
• Action 6: Eliminate minimum parking requirements citywide, establish parking maximums instead. (This has been discussed at length but not implemented; it could use a slight push.)

Actions 5, 7, and 8 all seemed fine as-is.