Real Estate

3 Reasons Why Housing is Such a Hot Topic in Minnetonka

The City Council is once again set to discuss housing guidelines for the community. Here's why.

On Monday, the Minnetonka City Council will once again discuss lot and home sizes and other housing issues affecting the community. Such discussions are not new to Minnetonka; the city has approved 23 residential subdivisions over the past five years.

This time, though, the council is taking a high-altitude look at the issue centered largely on one question: “How does the city appropriately balance lot sizes and homes sizes within the context of existing neighborhoods?”

Here are three reasons why that's such an important question (statistics provided by a work session memo).

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  1. There aren’t many spaces left for new homes: There aren’t as many places for developments as there were in the past. Of the roughly 12,670 single-family residential lots in Minnetonka, just 10 to 20 are large enough to be subdivided. That limits the housing stock improvements to the introduction of housing to new areas or the redevelopment within existing residential areas.
  2. Housing preferences are changing: The average Minnetonka home was built in 1966. The preferences of homebuyers back then don’t necessarily fit the preferences of the preferences of today’s homebuyers. In fact, trends have shifted even more recently. Between 1990 and 2000, more than four-fifths of regional homebuyers were looking for larger homes. But between 2010 and 2030, forecasters expect about two-thirds of homebuyers to be looking for smaller homes. In Minnetonka, the median size of new homes decreased by 30 percent over the past 10 years.
  3. There aren’t as many large lots as you think: Many residents think the typical Minnetonka lot is a half acre. In reality, 42 percent of the lots in the city are smaller than 22,000 square feet, or about half an acre.

 

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