A Kansas development group has been applying to build extremely high-density apartment buildings near college campuses in Norman, Stillwater, Lincoln, Manhattan and Lawrence. From what I've read, Norman & Lincoln denied their applications, Manhattan denied one and approved another, and Stillwater approved two. The denials were consistently because the cities felt that the applications were for too many units per acre. So I wonder: How much is too much?

Their Norman application sought to build 100 units/acre which is four times their code of 26 units/acre. The Lincoln application sought 233 units on 1.52 acres (153/acre). Both were turned down. Yet in Stillwater both applications were approved with similar density, one of which exceeds a variety of ordinances: Building height (72' height sought v. 50' max by code), bicycle spaces (20 sought v. 107 required), handicap parking spaces (4 sought v. 6 required by code), regular parking spaces (151 sought v. 152 required by code), and even the size of parking spaces (9' x 18' sought v. 9' x 20' required).

Clearly some cities embrace dense apartments while others oppose them. This company seems to seek to cram a lot of people into not much space, and then asks for several variances.

There are smart urban real estate guys on this board - what makes a dense apartment project successful, and is there a tipping point where residents feel like chickens in a coop?

It really is all about what the market will support. If an area is desirable and expensive enough (like around a college campus) people will settle for being chickens in a coop if it means they can live there cheaply (or even live there at all). If an area is not desirable or expensive, people will opt to live in a less dense area somewhere else. For example: Houses in Heritage Hills/Mesta Park are expensive in large part because they are the nearsest low-density housing to downtown. Low-density + desirable area = expensive. Another example: Apartments in Deep Deuce are (relatively) high density but also (relatively) expensive. Still, apartment life in Deep Deuce is cheaper than lower density Brownstone life in Deep Deuce.

In general higher density will always equal cheaper price. For this reason, when a city council uses zoning ordinances to restrict density, they are in effect opting for more expensive housing for a particular area. Of course it is rarely conceptualized like this.


So...to answer your question, my relatively libertarian belief is that apartments should be built at any density the market can support, and without any onerous parking requirements (but this last part is for another thread).

Here's a study that looks at the impact of density on storm water and storm water pollutants. Makes a compelling case for promoting high density.

http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/dept/cron/project/urban-sustainability/Stormwater_Sarah%20Madden/References/Jacob&Lopez2009.pdf