BLAIR, NEBRASKA (2024 November 21, Thursday)
Don Harrold, Writer / Editor
blairtoday@mail.com – Facebook
I had an idea for a new weekly series: Update folks in Blair about where there are apartment vacancies. It seemed like a good, helpful idea. And, it seemed like a straightforward, easy task.
The idea was to call each apartment complex in Blair and ask what vacancies were available. So, I got out my pen and paper, hit Google for the phone numbers of local apartments, and commenced to call.
And, what I found is there are only a handful of vacancies. By “handful”, I mean, well, most complexes either have none, there is a waiting list, or what they have won’t be ready for a couple months. In total, there were less than five I was told were possible.
This is actually an even more bleak situation than last time I checked.
If you are looking for an apartment in Blair, good luck. It’s stunning how little is available. The city can’t zone more areas for more housing fast enough. As for new homes to “buy,” prices and interest rates have carved a whole bunch of people of the market.
There’s hope on the horizon – but it’s an expensive horizon. The Blair City Council recently approved plans for Blair Crossing, a 132-unit apartment complex that would be “the first new apartments in Blair since 2000.” But the first units won’t be ready until late summer or early fall 2025, with full completion not expected until early 2026. And while these new units, ranging from studios to three-bedrooms with rents from $1,100 to $1,900, will help, they highlight how far behind we’ve fallen in meeting housing needs.
And Blair isn’t alone. Nationwide, half of all renters are paying more than a third of their salary in housing costs. For those looking to buy, scant few homes on the market are affordable for a typical household. The U.S. is simply short millions of housing units.
But some cities are finding answers. Take Minneapolis. They changed their zoning rules and added “12% to its housing stock in just that five-year period, far more than other cities,” says Alex Horowitz from Pew. They did it by “allowing more density downtown and along transit corridors, getting rid of parking requirements, [and] permitting construction of accessory dwelling units.”
Minneapolis’s strategy paid off in two key ways. The city’s housing stock grew 12% in just five years through zoning reforms like allowing more density and removing parking requirements. The payoff? While rents across Minnesota jumped 14%, Minneapolis residents saw just a 1% increase – showing that more housing supply helps keep costs down for everyone.
Why does this matter? Because “most American cities and most American states have rules on the books that make it really, really hard to build more infill housing,” explains Nolan Gray from California YIMBY.
YIMBY stands for “Yes In My Back Yard” – it’s an advocacy movement that promotes housing development and density, in contrast to NIMBY (“Not In My Back Yard”) opposition. California YIMBY is a pro-housing organization that pushes for zoning reform and increased housing development in California.
According to Gray, “If you want a California-style housing crisis, don’t do anything. But if you want to avoid the fate of states like California, learn some of the lessons of what we’ve been doing over the last few years and allow for more of that infill, mixed-income housing.”
Angela Brooks, who heads the American Planning Association, puts it straight: “We’re really dealing with outdated and inequitable regulations that in too many places really have choked housing supply.”
The message is clear: Blair needs to zone for more housing, and fast. Other cities are showing it can be done. The only question is whether Blair will act before the housing shortage gets even worse.
