58 Distillation Guidebook Co-Lab • 9.18–9.19 2025 Simply eliminating single-family zoning isn’t magically leading to more density/ housing. What will? FINALLY! The City in which Janet lives and works as a Planner is preparing to update the zoning ordinance. One change that the City is looking to make is to remove single-family residential zoning. This zoning prohibits multifamily buildings, duplexes/triplexes, townhomes, courtyard apartments, cottage courts, even accessory dwelling units (!) on properties zoned SingleFamily (R1 for those in the biz). Without this legal barrier, Janet thought this would open the door to new housing options for diverse groups of people! She thought, perhaps naively, the housing crisis could ease! But she is facing backlash…Why won’t this have the impact that Janet believes is possible? She set out to do some community engagement to find out. To begin with, developers were not interested in these newly available parcels for a few substantive reasons. The first most prominent reason is currently a hot topic in zoning reform: parking minimums. Outside the City’s core, parking is required for each dwelling unit. Whether it is surface parking (least expensive, ≈$5k/space), an above ground structure (≈30k/ space, or below the surface (most expensive, ≈$50k/space). This makes the financial “penciling out” of multi-unit Lauren Finn Senior Planner at the City of Lancaster, responding to Ellie Abrons, on what it takes to move from zoning reform to housing production.
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