Minneapolis considers allowing fourplexes citywide to relieve housing shortage

[Chef]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

in kc 4-plexes, or indeed any sized apartment buildings with these kinds of balconies are often just called "colonnades." minneapolis might have its own colloquial terms for different kinds of apartments/condos so is shouldn't speak for the entire non-chicago midwest.

Those would just be called apartment buildings here. St Paul has some that are like those.

Most of the classic fourplexes in the Twin Cities look like these:

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9378...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9399...7i13312!8i6656

There are some recent ones that are four stories, with a separate apartment on each floor:

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9522...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9583...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9622...7i13312!8i6656

[eschaton]

4-plexes are rare in Pittsburgh, but they do exist. Basically they are two-flats which are semi-attached. Like our relatively restricted stock of two-flats, almost all of them were built in the 1920s. Here's an example.

I don't know what the actual names for 4-plexes or two-flats are in Pittsburgh, as I'm not local to the region and have never heard the small multiunits discussed. I have taken to using the Chicago term, however, because duplex means different things in different parts of the country. In some places it refers to a two flat, but in others (like New England) it means a semi-detached home.

[IrishIllini]

Originally Posted by eschaton

4-plexes are rare in Pittsburgh, but they do exist. Basically they are two-flats which are semi-attached. Like our relatively restricted stock of two-flats, almost all of them were built in the 1920s. Here's an example.

I don't know what the actual names for 4-plexes or two-flats are in Pittsburgh, as I'm not local to the region and have never heard the small multiunits discussed. I have taken to using the Chicago term, however, because duplex means different things in different parts of the country. In some places it refers to a two flat, but in others (like New England) it means a semi-detached home.

I've seen duplex used to describe two-story condominiums/apartments. Simplex for one floor. Triplex for three...

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Chef

Those would just be called apartment buildings here. St Paul has some that are like those.

Most of the classic fourplexes in the Twin Cities look like these:

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9378...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9399...7i13312!8i6656

There are some recent ones that are four stories, with a separate apartment on each floor:

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9522...7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.com/maps/@44.9583...7i13312!8i6656

right, i chose a poor example for whatever point i was trying to make since those kc examples were not 4-plexes. those st. paul 4-plexs are pretty much spot on examples that you see across the midwest (well, at least twin cities, kc, st. louis).

whoa, those (interesting) new structures i would call flats i guess, though. semantics.

[Jonesy55]

Why were they banned in the first place, seems weird to specifically ban all housing in this format in certain areas?

[niwell]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

i wasn't really aware of this until recently, but my understanding is that toronto was late to the apartment building game for some reason? i came upon this article discussing the "first" apartment building in toronto...which would be an impossible task to figure out in the u.s.

https://www.blogto.com/city/2014/01/...ment_building/

Yep, and the answer lies in the puritanical roots of the city. Essentially, the staunch protestant upper class of Toronto saw the development of tenements and apartment buildings in cities like New York and decided they were breeding grounds for immoral behaviour. The relatively small number apartment buildings built pre-WWI were generally either extremely expensive buildings for single male professionals, or special purpose buildings such as dorm-like apartments for single women to prevent them from behaviour like drinking and sex (not even joking).

The single family home was considered the British ideal for healthy living, and pushed heavily. Of course, most residents couldn't actually afford a single family home so almost all of what was built was designed for multiple families from the get-go. Usually the primary residence on the main floor and 1-2 apartments above, albeit without separate entrances. Sometimes the rooms upstairs would just be rented out to multiple 'lodgers' too. When coupled with the extremely narrow lots in the city densities were actually pretty high - close to Chicago and higher than all of the other Great Lakes cities.

Interestingly enough, a lot of the actual purpose built apartments were designed to look like single family homes too, so as to retain this ideal: https://goo.gl/maps/cxSB6vbQiAK2


Also of note is that in the early 1920s or so there were a ton of small apartment buildings constructed just outside city limits such as the big cluster around St. Clair and Bathurst / Spadina Even though rules in the city weren't as strict at the time they were geared towards more discreet buildings and there was significant pent up demand for purpose built apartments:
https://goo.gl/maps/rfg9qCjLxyB2
https://goo.gl/maps/xJGJoN7u5ND2
https://goo.gl/maps/sM7jHUKhaXu
https://goo.gl/maps/Dy6xbQEZkCM2
https://goo.gl/maps/7neM3GsQohB2

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

Why were they banned in the first place, seems weird to specifically ban any housing in this format in certain areas?

It happened because the Supreme Court ruled that Euclidian zoning was okay. Basically until 1926, zoning was used to regulate separation of uses (industrial over here, and residential over there) and built form (setbacks, height, etc. The village of Euclid, OH passed a zoning code which was intended to limit development in order to stop annexation by the city of Cleveland. A developer which owned 68 acres of property wanted to develop this land as they saw fit, and challenged the zoning code all the way to the Supreme Court. What's less remembered today is (IIRC) the developer was willing to conform to most aspects of their zoning code, but they wanted to have small multi-units which would be indistinguishable from the outside from single-family homes. One of the legacies of Euclid was that SFH-only zones were deemed A-OK.

[Chef]

Originally Posted by Jonesy55

Why were they banned in the first place, seems weird to specifically ban all housing in this format in certain areas?

They weren't entirely banned, but much of the residential area of the city is zoned R1 which only allows for single family houses or R2 which allow houses and duplexes. Essentially this proposal upzones all the R1 and R2 to allow everything up to a fourplex. Almost all of the older apartment buildings predate zoning so when the zoning code was written those lots were spot zoned to higher densities, which means that much of what is zoned for density already has density on it. Since R1 and R2 are the most common residential zoning types, this proposal would open up huge swathes of the city to higher densities. This map should give you an idea:

https://www.minnpost.com/data/2015/0...neapolis-zoned

[dubu]

Are we done building houses? From now on we should only build these, condos and apartments in suburbs.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by niwell

Yep, and the answer lies in the puritanical roots of the city. Essentially, the staunch protestant upper class of Toronto saw the development of tenements and apartment buildings in cities like New York and decided they were breeding grounds for immoral behaviour. The relatively small number apartment buildings built pre-WWI were generally either extremely expensive buildings for single male professionals, or special purpose buildings such as dorm-like apartments for single women to prevent them from behaviour like drinking and sex (not even joking).

The single family home was considered the British ideal for healthy living, and pushed heavily. Of course, most residents couldn't actually afford a single family home so almost all of what was built was designed for multiple families from the get-go. Usually the primary residence on the main floor and 1-2 apartments above, albeit without separate entrances. Sometimes the rooms upstairs would just be rented out to multiple 'lodgers' too. When coupled with the extremely narrow lots in the city densities were actually pretty high - close to Chicago and higher than all of the other Great Lakes cities.

Interestingly enough, a lot of the actual purpose built apartments were designed to look like single family homes too, so as to retain this ideal: https://goo.gl/maps/cxSB6vbQiAK2


Also of note is that in the early 1920s or so there were a ton of small apartment buildings constructed just outside city limits such as the big cluster around St. Clair and Bathurst / Spadina Even though rules in the city weren't as strict at the time they were geared towards more discreet buildings and there was significant pent up demand for purpose built apartments:
https://goo.gl/maps/rfg9qCjLxyB2
https://goo.gl/maps/xJGJoN7u5ND2
https://goo.gl/maps/sM7jHUKhaXu
https://goo.gl/maps/Dy6xbQEZkCM2
https://goo.gl/maps/7neM3GsQohB2

that's totally weird, and what's even weirder is that the u.s. as a whole is actually closer to that mentality now than canada.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

haha really? four units, usually stacked 2X2....vastly common in the midwest, although often they are actually 8 units.

It’s not a term in use in Chicago, and I had literally never heard it until seeing this thread.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by 10023

It’s not a term in use in Chicago, and I had literally never heard it until seeing this thread.

steely corroborated that, i was surprised but i guess i’ve never seen one in chicago. funny how various housing styles did and didn't spread around the midwest.

[Chef]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

steely corroborated that, i was surprised but i guess i’ve never seen one in chicago. funny how various housing styles did and didn't spread around the midwest.

It probably had to do with the strength of demand. In the Twin Cities most of the prewar fourplexes are in St Paul, in Minneapolis they were building larger apartment buildings because it was growing faster.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Chef

It probably had to do with the strength of demand. In the Twin Cities most of the prewar fourplexes are in St Paul, in Minneapolis they were building larger apartment buildings because it was growing faster.

could be, we have a butt-load of them too spread out into multiple suburbs across a huge area outside of “apartment districts.” some cities really took to them for some reason.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

steely corroborated that, i was surprised but i guess i’ve never seen one in chicago. funny how various housing styles did and didn't spread around the midwest.

Well, as I said earlier, for whatever reason, when chicago builders built two attached flat buildings side by side, they almost always built them as 3 story structures, so they all ended up as 6-flats, which chicago has in spades. There must have been something in the zoning code at the time because, while 2-flats also abound in the windy city, 4-flats (4-plexes) aren't really a thing here, like they apparently are in many other Midwest cities.

Chicago's version of the 4-flat/4-plex is simply just a 6-flat.

And over the course of my life in chicago, I have lived in three different 6-flat buildings. And I'm now living in my third 3-flat. These kinds of flat buildings are ALL OVER urban core chicago.

[mhays]

In my state, condo laws on onerous enough that it's much easier and safer to build individual separate properties. I don't know the specifics but a common wall might be allowed, i.e. an "attached SFR." We don't have three-flats. Instead we have three- and four-story skinny houses.

Here's a hot spot where four-plexes have replaced most of the houses, generally with common walls in two pairs: https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6691.../data=!3m1!1e3

Here are examples with separate skinny houses. https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6139.../data=!3m1!1e3

[Nomad9]

How bad is the housing situation in Minneapolis? I was looking at Zillow recently and the market seemed comparable to “cheaper” east coast markets like Philly, which surprised me.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Well, as I said earlier, for whatever reason, when chicago builders built two attached flat buildings side by side, they almost always built them as 3 story structures, so they all ended up as 6-flats, which chicago has in spades. There must have been something in the zoning code at the time because, while 2-flats also abound in the windy city, 4-flats (4-plexes) aren't really a thing here, like they apparently are in many other Midwest cities.

Chicago's version of the 4-flat/4-plex is simply just a 6-flat.

And over the course of my life in chicago, I have lived in three different 6-flat buildings. And I'm now living in my third 3-flat. These kinds of flat buildings are ALL OVER urban core chicago.

4-flats on a single lot (~25’ wide) are fairly common in certain parts of the North Side. The “first floor” is 5’ above ground, so the half-sunken basement level can either be a separate “garden” apartment or combined with the first floor in a two-level “duplex down” apartment. Ergo the 4-flat can be either 3.5 or 4.5 stories tall.

4.5 story example
3.5 story example

There are also 1960s style 4-flats with side entrance on a double lot in Chicago’s mid-century neighborhoods. Usually they have a hip roof.

mid-century example (note the trademark topiary )

Anyway, all goes to show that Minneapolis has a range of style choices available and this zoning change need not turn Minneapolis into Brownstone Brooklyn. Depending on lot width, setbacks, etc the humble "four-plex" can go all the way from Back Bay-level urban to semi-suburban in terms of character.

[10023]

It’s not so much the 4 units vs 6 units that I was focused on, but the use of the suffix “plex”. If the thread said 4-flats, then yeah I’d get it. But a “fourplex”, to the uninitiated, could be a number of forms - 4 attached houses, 4 apartments stacked vertically, two attached duplexes, etc.

Steely - does Chicago have any zoned R1 within city limits? Or are places where single family homes exist that way for other reasons (ie, historical preservation)?

[10023]

Originally Posted by ardecila

4-flats on a single lot (~25’ wide) are fairly common in certain parts of the North Side. The “first floor” is 5’ above ground, so the half-sunken basement level can either be a separate “garden” apartment or combined with the first floor in a two-level “duplex down” apartment. Ergo the 4-flat can be either 3.5 or 4.5 stories tall.

There are also 1960s style 4-flats with side entrance on a double lot in Chicago’s mid-century neighborhoods. Usually they have a hip roof.

There’s a similar form in London but they’re bigger and attached to their neighbors. I actually live in one.

The lots are a bit over 30’ wise, and they tend to divide them into two side by side maisonettes (duplexes) on the raised ground floor (5’ or above ground) and lower ground floor (half basement). Then on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd floors (what Americans would call the 2nd, 3rd and 4th), you can have another couple of duplexes and a latteral top floor apartment for 5 apartments in the building in total. Or if you wanted to create really small apartments, those four maisonettes can be broken down into small studios or one bedrooms and that building can have 8 units.