Building Missing Middle Housing—Recommended Tools Beyond Policy Reform

Missing middle housing—a term referring to the building types between a single-family home and a mid-rise apartment building—is increasingly viewed as one possible solution to the need for smaller, more diverse housing types in walkable neighborhoods in Massachusetts and across the US. As described in the first paper in this series, this scale of housing is ideal for urban and suburban infill sites, fits a wide range of housing preferences, phases of life, and budgets, and is often built by developers invested in their local communities. However, missing middle housing is currently illegal to build in most of Massachusetts due to local zoning, even though new construction of middle housing was once commonplace. Even if, as documented in the second paper in this series, middle housing were re-legalized in all residential areas across the state through a combination of zoning and other regulatory reforms, additional measures are needed to support a robust middle housing ecosystem. In this paper I recommend six actions to build this ecosystem:

1. Create a statewide missing middle design guide and locally implemented pre-approved plans; 
2. Stand up a missing middle training cohort and construction trades pipeline; 
3. Pilot statewide middle housing initiatives with development-ready communities; 
4. Implement construction innovation for cost and time savings; 
5. Create or convene novel funding sources; and 
6. Establish a statewide missing middle role or division. 

This paper is the third in a three-part series on surveying, legalizing, and expanding missing middle housing in Massachusetts.