Jen Griffin: Fast-Tracking Affordable Housing: How Pre-Approved Building Plans Are Enabling Infill & Changing Communities

Austin Tunnell

Pre-approved building program, they're most effective to essentially help with infill development and to help whatever community is dealing with right now is the housing crisis. It really has helped to support that local developer ecosystem, which is incredibly important because you want people who are like invested long-term and their families invested long-term in a place.

Austin Tunnell

Welcome to the Building Culture podcast, where we explore holistic solutions to crafting a more beautiful, resilient, and thriving world through the built environment. I'm your host, Austin Tennell. I interview leading change makers, architects, developers, builders, engineers, entrepreneurs, inventors, and more. I also share my own journey as the founder of Building Culture as we grow a holistic real estate development company from the ground up. Together, we can explore a new vision for city building in the 21st century. one that puts people at the center. If you enjoyed this podcast or find value in what we're doing, please leave a five-star review, share it with your friends, and drop us a note. Thanks for listening. I want to take a moment to thank the sponsors of our podcast, Sierra Pacific Windows. They are a national window and door manufacturer, some really high-quality windows and doors. We use them... regularly in our building culture projects. So if you've got a renovation or new construction, I highly recommend you talk to your local distributor and check them out. Also, OneSource windows and doors. It doesn't just matter the manufacturer, it matters who you're buying your windows from. And if you're in the state of Oklahoma, OneSource windows and doors, they've got a showroom in Oklahoma City and in Tulsa and they service the entire state. We work with them regularly to purchase our Sierra Pacific windows. So if you're in the state of Oklahoma, check them out. Sierra Pacific Windows and one source of windows and doors if you're in the state of Oklahoma. Jen, I'm really glad to be talking to you today on the podcast. Yeah, Austin, it's good to be here. Well, could you before, you know, I want to talk to you specifically about pre-approved plans today and, you know, how the work that you've done with that and how to work with the municipalities and also how developers and architects and things can. use those as resources for themselves. But to start off with, could you give people a little bit of a background about your background and also some of the projects you're working on right now? And I know you've got a lot of different stuff going on. Yeah, yeah. No, it's been a busy couple of years, actually, this year in particular. yeah, I am and the basics. I am an architect and urban designer and based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I'm in practice and have had it for about

Austin Tunnell

10 years now. I've been based here in Tulsa for about 10 years. But my professional background, I'm originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I have worked along the East Coast and the Midwest and even abroad in London during kind of my formation years professionally. And then yeah, landed in Tulsa about 10 years ago due to family. been here ever since and just continue to do work. really across the country and also still internationally every once in while I get a project here or there to plug into. Yes, some of the projects that I'm working on right now, as you mentioned the pre-approved building programs, we've been working on in that space probably for about four or five years now, mainly with communities in the Midwest, but that's it's starting to expand to other places. A lot of people have been interested in it now that those programs have been launched. so doing some of that, working on some affordable housing projects, both kind of smaller scale and fill, but for wildlife projects for local nonprofits, as well as kind of larger scale, why tech projects or local housing tax credit projects and still do. You know, I do my master planning work and architecture work for a number of private developers, both locally and elsewhere. So yeah, it's a range. And I also do some code writing on my spare time. And I teach an urban design theory course currently at the Oklahoma University at Nehru Urban Design Studio. So I do that every year. So I've got my hands in various different things. Always keeping things interesting. Do you do that at OU? Yeah. Do you travel down here? No. So they have a satellite campus in Tulsa and their urban design studio program, which is a graduate level program, is actually based at their Tulsa campus. it's a graduate level course. A lot of the folks that go through it are working. And so it's kind of catered to like a

Austin Tunnell

a higher level student body population that are like working or in the profession or wanting to transition into planning or development or architecture, urban design or that sort of thing. great. And then you've taught at Notre Dame before too, I know. Yeah, yeah. I taught at the University of Notre Dame. I also teach through the Institute of Classical Art and Architecture. I do a summer course there every summer. So I travel and they're based in New York City. So I travel to New York City to do that. yeah. Well, you really, yeah, you're like a Swiss army now. If I can see you, it's very cool. It's fun. Well, yeah, let's jump in. I'd love to hear about so first, just so everyone understands, I mean, it might sound kind of obvious what a pre-approved plan is, but let's just kind of go over what is a pre-approved plan. Yeah. Yeah. And I like, I like kind of couch it into is we were working on pre-approved building programs. So a pre-approved building program is one that essentially a city will approve or pre-approve pre-designed buildings. They're essentially like permit ready and they'll pre-approve them and make them available, those designs and those plan sets available for folks to utilize to build typically in-fill from small to middle scale housing. within that community. So it's, it's pretty self-explanatory. It's not a new tool. A lot of it's been, as ideas have been floating around and people have been, you know, working in this space intentionally, I should say, the last maybe decade. And really, in the last four or five years, we've seen a number of programs come, like, be launched. And, and they vary quite a lot, actually, in terms of how they're set up. how the architecture is approved, what's available for folks to utilize and that sort of thing. So we've seen them across the country really, in the Northeast, the Midwest kind of are in Texas and West Coast and that sort of thing. So the ones that I've been working on are in the Midwest, I've been working with two communities specifically the city of South Bend and the city of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Austin Tunnell

and helping develop other pre-approved building programs in conjunction with various team members. So I work with the girl, Jen Settle, who's based out of Chicago and I've also worked with Jim Cuman, who's based out of Minnesota on these programs. in a nutshell, I tell you a little bit about the programs. I've been telling people like pre-rebuilding programs they're really no different than any sort of like subsidy or incentive a city could offer to help support in-field development, specifically in-field development. You can use that really anywhere, know, greenfield development and that sort of thing, but they're, I think they're most effective to essentially help with in-field development and to help whatever community is dealing with right now is the housing crisis, right? So it's to kind of help expedite opportunity for in-field housing. but also to help ensure better quality in filled housing. So in part because you're pre-approving, you're designing and pre-approving these buildings, right? So you're kind of vetting them with community. You know that they look good in the neighborhoods. And so when people utilize them, the community knows what they're gonna get. And so it helps, especially when you start to kind of dial in and you wanna maybe allow a little bit greater density in your in your neighborhoods, existing neighborhoods, or maybe are all single family, but you want to allow a duplex or a fourplex or that sort of thing. It's incredibly helpful to kind of ease the temperature in the room among the community, like they know what it's going to look like, right? That they don't hear duplex, they don't hear floorplex. And like the image that comes up in their mind is... like something horrible that is built in like the 1960s or 70s, it's the neighborhood over and they're just like, no, don't, know, not in my backyard sort of thing. it's helpful to kind show like, hey, no, this could be house scale. This could look like every other high quality house in the neighborhood, but we're actually providing a little more housing units because you know, every community is challenged with that currently. So it's a great way, it's a great tool for that if calibrated correctly.

Austin Tunnell

The other thing is, it's a tool, like I said, it's like no other subsidy, because essentially the city is paying for the designs, the development of designs and making them available. There are a lot of ways these programs can be set up and calibrated. The city could pay the cost of them, the city can pay for part of the cost of them. Just having pre-approved. plans available, even if a developer would have to pay for them, just knowing that they're pre-approved and the streamline approved like building permit process and stuff like that is also, know, produces holding costs and all this sort of like an incentive in that respect. But the great thing about them is like, if you look at the other subsidies that cities offer out there for housing, this is one that's incredibly attainable and, you know, usable for just the common resident if they had a lot or just someone who's not You don't need a legal team to write up a development agreement and review it with the city. It's just these are out there available. And so it's a really kind of great way to democratize in-field development and help create local wealth because it's available to just the basic residents who wants to maybe improve their neighborhood and provide additional housing. Yeah, I want to jump in there for a second because I think what you're saying there is so important on the builder developer side, which, you know, I'm coming from that perspective. We do architecture too, but the more I'm stepping into development and understanding how to put deals together and finance the deals and from a builder, one, the pre-approved plans empower builders, I think, to go and buy a lot. and go do something, you know, build a duplex, build a fourplex that enables and feel like you're saying that can be very difficult to permit. You can buy a lot and not know if you're to be able to build that duplex or fourplex or whatever it is for a year. And from a developer perspective, it just reduces the risk so much where you can draw up a pro forma a year ahead, you know, saying, if I know if I get these lots, I can do this and I know it's going to get permitted versus that taking a year and a half to figure out. so there's a reason that

Austin Tunnell

Everything built today is either a multifamily apartment building or a monolithic suburban subdivision. And a lot of it's because, you know, zoning and utilities and stuff. the thing that I see that these pre-approve plans do is like you're saying one, they're vetted. So you're not going to get people hopefully picketing at city council. And then two, you are ensuring like a certain level of quality, whatever. And then three, you're literally empowering people, making it easier for builders and developers. I just wanted to say that from my perspective, I really see the value in it and it enables small developers because that's part of problem is multifamily. mean, unless you can raise tens of millions of dollars to access institutional capital and or a monolithic suburban subdivision when you're having to buy a hundred acres, I mean, that's a lot versus an architect, an individual could go do this. Yeah. And that's really what we've seen. So in South Venice was the first place we started working on this. And The way that it has helped since its launch, what we've seen is a lot of the first users, the users that have been in the program so far have been very small nonprofits who've been trying to get into the housing or affordable housing space. And just local entrepreneurs or local residents that are like, hey, they realize like, hey, this is there. I know there's a lot next to mine. I see what it's costing on Zillow. And in our program, we give rough estimates costs or construction that range. right, as you know, being in development, that number changes constantly, but that gives them at least a ballpark understanding to like toe into it, right? Like, and so that's what we found is that it really has helped to support that local developer ecosystem, which is incredibly important because you want people who are like invested long-term and their families invested long-term in a place. because they're going to be putting in sweat equity to create the best quality place possible because they live next door, right? They're not going anywhere. And so they're more interested. Yes, they want to make sure the deal pencils, but they also care greatly about the physical outcome and the impact to the place and to the neighborhood. Very much a bottom up strong town approach of like enable the form of, you know, smaller developers developer to do in fill. Yeah, I love that you said no. Go ahead.

Austin Tunnell

I was gonna say, you mentioned too, just about like people in the housing space, like you'll see like the very large scale, know, multifamily building or just the single family homes. And it's interesting that you bring that up because specifically aligned with just our experience in South Bend is that, you know, that middle scale development, which everyone talks about now, right? It's like missing middle housing and like that's just so, it's cute and it's like, everybody loves it. And it's just, but it's not getting built today. And are not as built as much as it should today. And what we found in South Bend, just to maybe give you a little bit of background and history of that place, because something I should share is like, we've done this in two communities so far. And there are lot of similarities about how we approached them, but the context, the way we developed the program was different because of the local context and what opportunities we were trying to kind of leverage to ensure that the tool was going to be successful, which means get housing units built, right? Like that's success of the tool. Like you can launch this and like it's up, you know, you have a website, it looks pretty and everything like that. if you're not getting housing units built because of it, then it's, you know, it's just a kind of a strong man. It's not really helping. But in South Bend, they had like a lot of rest-belt cities, right? Like a decline in the last half of the 20th century. But I think more Achilles' in South Bend, they just had, What that yielded kind of like, you know, the beginning of this century, right, is just a lot of vacant lots in their in-town neighborhoods. And like heightened sense compared to some other Rust Belt cities, just a lot of vacant lots. you know, as the city in the last 20 years has, people have invested in downtown, they've had, you know, some forward thinking leadership. The folks in the city are fantastic and they've done a really good job of attracting businesses, attracting entrepreneurs. and really kind of put a spotlight on South Bend. so like there, you know, there were a lot of interest locally of kind of instilling in these neighborhoods, because the bones, right, the streets were there. They're within walking. This is the downtown. The downtown was seeing investment. New restaurants were coming in. Streetscape approvals were happening. You know, people wanted to live, work and play, all that sort of thing in South Bend.

Austin Tunnell

they found is that local developers, as you know, housing's an ecosystem, right? You might have a vacant lot, you might want to build on it, but there's all these things that could cause it not to pencil or be successful. And one of the biggest things they found in South Bend was that there hadn't been new construction in these neighborhoods in decades. so, though people were interested in building in-field housing on these alley-loaded, lots, like one, the zoning code wasn't calibrated correctly, which our team was involved in helping you rewrite the zoning code. So they fixed that. But the other big thing they found is that theirs was not comps for their pro forma to like get the funding, the bank loans and that sort of thing to be able to finance these projects. And so when you're in that climate and you have local developers who want to infill, but they can't finance it, it becomes a huge challenge. And so part of this program was to really incentivize and provide that kind of gap funding by saying like, I know you're not going to want to go and do the R &D to like design a different building type. Because most of these developers had been working in suburban contexts with product type that was wide, front loaded garages, that sort of thing. And so they wanted to go and develop in these narrow alley loaded lots. They're not going to spend the time and the money to develop new product type to fit. And so part of us in developing the program, people have used the program as well, but just in the process of developing it and like showing them these plans and everything, we found other people gone in and have more easily been able to develop this sort of product type in their local catalog. And so it's moving the needle, not just in terms of program users, but like other adjacent users and developers that are kind of getting inspired and using kind of the resource to help spur and help. direct their efforts in these neighborhoods. That's really exciting. Did you say, I can't remember if you said it today or if it was yesterday, that in South Bend, since you've kind of completed the program, got it implemented, there have been 50 or so? That's just, I mean, how many years has that taken? So when did you complete it? And then 50, which maybe 50 doesn't sound like a lot, but for a place that you said, you know, hadn't been building in their neighborhoods for decades. South Bend, actually, so that 50 have been built,

Austin Tunnell

or 48 as of March this year in Kalamazoo. And that's a really interesting story. There's been five completed or near completed to date in South Bend and the program has been running for two years. But there's almost, I think there's like, last time I talked to my contact, the city, Tim Corcoran, he said there are 90 some in the kind of planning and pre-construction phase, one of which is like a 50 unit scattered site light tech project. in South Bend in these in-town neighborhoods. So essentially they acquired various lots and I think two, there was two specific neighborhoods and adjacent to downtown. And they're using solely pre-approved building programs for their light tech project. And they essentially said like, this wouldn't have been possible if we didn't have these. Because they're using like, I think, four or five different building types that we have, you know, and so like for them to have to develop each one of these to fit on the lot and you know, that cost was just, it wouldn't allow the projects to pencil. And so that's very exciting to see kind of as we kind of scale up, right? So it's not just individual, but it's like local nonprofits actually scaling up, you know, the number of housing units they can get in these neighborhoods. But you mentioned, so in, Palin Azou, that process is a little different, which is really interesting, if anybody is listening and thinking about what would this look like in my hometown if we developed a program here. Kalamazoo, they partnered with a local nonprofit while we were developing the program. And essentially they were building these building types, these housing types that we were designing while we were like going through the process while we were developing. So that the program is actually officially launching publicly this year, very soon. But they've already had 48 houses built, 48 units built already.

Austin Tunnell

from the program before it was publicly launched because they partner with a local nonprofit, essentially like provide proof of concept. But the other thing that really helped them do was like go through and vet the process. What they found is like there was just some really unreasonable like utility tap fees and stuff like that. It's just our costs to old infrastructure to be able to access it. And so they were able to work through some of that. and provide different opportunities for support for those projects that were that, you know, might have I guess they would have figured that out after they launched the program, but they were trying to streamline, you know, the whole process, you know, from start to finish. Essentially, cities, you know, this is kind of it's also the same thing is like you're kind of stepping into the developer role, right? Like you're you're you're approving these projects ahead of time. So you need to kind of like vet this through. your review process, like all the pieces that go into it. So it's a really good audit process for a city, to say, Yeah, it's it's eye opening. mean, it's just like, got through and you're like, How hard it is to build a duplex. like, this is why is it taking you this long to permit? And like, our building department's really hard to work with. like, you know, why is there zoning? So it's like, it really opens your eyes. And what we found is it really kind of gets people coalesce around. an idea, a project, work together, especially in community. I like we work in a number of communities where it's like you feel like there's kind of these silos, right? And like in any developer project, you feel like you're like, kind of like it's just like you're banging your head against the wall trying to get things approved because like you realize like departments aren't talking to each other. And and so having a program like this in which the city is actually trying to advance like makes everyone to kind of come to the table and say like, hey, this, you know, this is hard for us. Can you only imagine it hard for somebody who's not, you know, well versed in city processes and that sort of thing? it's I think it's a helpful help, like a very healthy thing for cities to go through. Yeah, I find that's I hadn't thought about that part, but that is a very good point, because anyone that's taken anything through the city trying to do anything in Phil.

Austin Tunnell

It's extremely difficult. And like you said, the departments do not understand development. They do not care about development. Generally speaking, it doesn't mean there's not good people. You know, they're just focused on their little thing. They don't talk to the other department. So that's incredibly valuable to go through. If you've been enjoying the Building Culture podcast and are listening on Apple or Spotify, could you pause for just a moment and leave a five star review? My goal is to get to a hundred reviews. And if you do take a screenshot and email it to Playbook. at buildingculture.com, playbook, P-L-A-Y-B-O-O-K at buildingculture.com. And when we hit 100, I'll randomly pick five winners and send them a building culture hat that looks just like this. I appreciate it. And back to the show. A couple of follow up questions. You had mentioned, I'm curious at the different building types that you have done. And then also you mentioned, you know, there's, there's variations you've seen like pretty different. types of programs. And so I'd be curious to hear, you know, maybe a couple different ends of that spectrum of the differences that you've seen. programs are set up. absolutely. By the way, I got to say it's super exciting. mean, 90 in Q in Southend. Yeah. That's astonishing to me. that really is. I mean, talk about high impact work. That is really amazing. Yeah, especially for a city the size of South Bend, right? then, it might not seem that big, like if you're in Tulsa or if you're whatever, or in Dallas or whatever, but for South Bend, it's yeah, it's pretty incredible. So we've done a whole range of building types. I think that was your first question. We've done everything from a carriage house to a sixplex currently. So. And in that listening to H-Team process, it just kind of opened the curtains a little bit and talk about how we developed the program in South Bend. They are amazing. And both in Kalamazoo and South Bend, they're kind of like the dream clients to work with, just incredibly smart people. The cities are sizes that I think they feel hyper local, like people can get stuff done, you know? And so when you have like a good cohort of smart people and a caring community, like there's just like nothing that you can really not do, you know? So it's exciting.

Austin Tunnell

But in South Bend, their whole approach to everything's from when we worked with them on their code rewrite, it has been really like incremental everything. I mean, everything that does incremental and they just kind of take it one step at a time. And, you know, the results have been great because of it. They did incremental code reform, but in the pre-approved building program process in terms of their building types, what we did initially is we had a lot of background information to kind of pull from this, so you see like. know, the project is the program we use across the city, but there were obviously some specific neighborhoods that they wanted this to be, to really help support infill. And so we did two things when we started the project to determine what building types we were gonna start with was we did a lot of analysis where we took all the different lots in these neighborhoods we wanted to focus on and like just kind of bet. what the sizes were, like what are the general widths and the depths and if they're alley loaded, what kind of size footprint of building or we need to have in our catalog so that we know we're not missing something, you know? And what we found in South Bend is like there were a lot of 40 to 50 foot wide lots, which is pretty typical across the, you you find in like standard American platted, you know, blocks, you know, pre World War I and that sort of thing. But then, we also found that there were a lot of really narrow lots, like 33 foot wide lots, which was really interesting. But what we found is like, we're actually going to need a product type that's going to fit on this if we're going to want these lots to be infilled. so we did that line analysis and that was what kind of yielded us to do kind of a narrow detached single-family house because that narrow lot needed something specific to be able to fit on it. So we did that. But then the other thing we did is we did a financial analysis. So we sat down with the city at the beginning of this and we looked at all the building types. There was the suite of all the missing middle, like 12 or 13 building types. After doing the performance for all of them, what we found was there was really only five that would really

Austin Tunnell

pencil right now, given the current market dynamics and the performance and the comps that you could get and everything like that. And so we focused on those five and those were the five that we launched with. And surely thereafter, like within probably like three months, the city came back to us and said, hey, can we add two more? And that was come and then now we're actually adding four more to the catalog as well. And those were coming from request the people that wanted to do those particular kinds of projects or use or have those building types for projects. And they just weren't yet, you know, they weren't yet there when we were developing the program. And so like we've been adding to it incrementally as projects come on online and are feasible and could add those building types to the catalog. So right now in South Bend, you know, we've got like a carriage house. We have a narrow lot single family detached house. have a standard size single family detached house. We have a stack duplex. We have a side by side duplex. We have a front to back duplex, a fourplex and a sixplex in South Bend. But in Kalamazoo, we have a fourplex and we're looking now to add a potentially a 12plex. And so, yeah, we're just kind of continuously adding to these buildings. That's a great thing. as you get comms out there. And one interesting thing I should say too is that the program launched, right? We've had a number of nonprofits use it. And what we found is like the buildings were so kind of attractive that they had no problem selling them like right away. And so much so that they didn't need to list them on MLS. so what they found is that that's great, but... actually they want to have comps out there. So now they require people to list, even if they sell it without having to market it, they have to at least provide the listing and officially submit that so that they can, so they're changing the comps that are available out there. And so the market dynamic and what people can finance is improving in these neighborhoods as well. So it's just, like I said, as we go through it, this is like such an interesting and new tool. We're just learning a lot and helping to kind of like utilize that in other communities that we work with.

Austin Tunnell

Yeah. And then you had a second question. was... variations on like, say two different programs. yeah. if South Bend is a good example or another one would be a good example about how they're implemented or something. Yeah. And I honestly, I'm kind of a big promoter of the methodologies that we've used. Obviously, we've been very intentional about the programs. This work that we've done have been in communities that we've worked with, have very long term relationships with. We're not going anywhere and that sort of thing. We're kind of very invested in the success of the program, both cities, you know, folks, but also us as consultants are. But we've seen other programs then have launched. So we were intentional in our process, right? We were, did the lot analysis, we did the financial analysis. We are looking at codes and what sort of things that both communities actually we worked with. We had been working on their codes and thinking about how does the zoning need to change? What's the approval process? How does that need to change? What is the financing opportunities there? To really dial in and calibrate that tool as much as possible to ensure its success. The building types, the plans are available to anyone for free in these communities. The city essentially purchased a non-exclusive license from us to be able to distribute the plans to any, for any project within the city limits. And so that's, like I said, it's been a huge help to that. Other programs that we've seen in other areas, they, as I say, some of them have been as simple as, and I've seen these out in California, is they've been as simple as like they just have a request for designers to submit designs and saying, we'll take these through, like you submit your designs, we'll take them through and we'll, and if they, if we're able to approve them and get our pre-approved, we'll then put them on our website as ones that you want that are having either pre-reviewed or pre-approved. What we found with those is like what you, so it's really low cost for us to do that, right? Like they're not paying architects for their designs. They're just saying like, hey, it's essentially the,

Austin Tunnell

The buy-in is through the architect to get a little more advertising essentially. But there's real incentive for the architect to maybe dial in and design something specific to a local neighborhood because that would be all at their own cost. And then usually those programs, then the architect is still charging a fee for a similar like a stock plan set. So which is fine, but given that it's not free. and you're having to work with a third party, not the city, like a local architect. It's just a little bit more strenuous for a person to utilize that program. And cons that we found from those is not one, that they lack a consistency in building character design. You get everything from a super modern ADU unit to something that looks more. maybe like 1950s or whatever. It's just like, there's no consistent character that aligns specifically with like their city or their neighborhoods or whatever. And that might not be the case if you do this type of program or set it up in this way, but that's just kind of an observation from the communities that have. And then the use has it, but what we found is like not making what views the programs from it. methodologies for setting these up. There's one out there called Pattern Zones. And it's a group. It's just one specific group that does this. And they're trying to essentially have a catalog. And also Liberty House Plans is doing a similar set up where they're just almost like a stock plant website. They're just trying to have plans out there that really could be utilized anywhere. And then they offer that as like a city could plug into that to those catalogs and and offer some of those building types. Again, similarly, like pre-approve them and then offer them as part of the pre-approve program. So like I said, the way we did ours is that we doubted it and developed the design specifically so that we knew that they would align well architecturally with the local character. And yeah, I think...

Austin Tunnell

I think that's important, one, and because just the neighbors just, you know, it just feels like it fits, right? And so the neighbors have less pushback while on it, but also. You know, it's it's the character of it of aligns with it but we also there are certain ways to make a building more expensive to build and less expensive to build and To the just normal eye you might not know it there's a way to make a building look really great and not be expensive to build and I think it takes a certain kind of architect that in a certain kind of designer a certain kind of team that like has understanding of design development cost to then be able to design really great buildings and make sure that they're not gonna just explode budget sort of thing. So, and it's a learning process. There's a lot of great groups out there that have that knowledge. And so I think it's just tapping into them. And if you're gonna hire an architect to this, make sure you, it's one that's not just someone who's designing like custom residential or more large scale projects, but they're more in tune with kind of the development ecosystem. Yeah, I really appreciate the kind of more curated version of it that you're talking about and not saying the other versions can't work, but actually having fewer but better things to choose from is better from like a builder developer perspective. You go on a website and there's a hundred plans, you know, that are kind of all similar. really hard to filter through those and figure out. And frankly, too, like you said, if you work through the pro forma, granted things change over time, but just kind of being able to have an idea and being able to take a plan for free and go get it priced out versus let me pay for a plan, get it priced out, hope it works. Like you're already in it a ways before you go, no, this doesn't work. I think there's just, then the architectural character, like you're saying, think is all really, really strong, you know, points for the methodology that you were laying out.

Austin Tunnell

The other thing too is that it is interesting is like, I think there's something attractive to people on the surface level saying like, we can offer 30 pre-approved building program or 30 pre-approved buildings. Honestly, you don't need that many. And it is, it's kind of unwieldy for a developer to track all of it, our program is South Bend and Kalamazoo, which you can go online on their websites, specifically South Bend, that catalog is available online. And so you can see our projects. But they're, I mean, they're just like, you look at plans, they're just dumb boxes, right? They're just boxes in the plan. like we tried to cut out all the unnecessary corners and gables, but like the proportions, the symmetry, the articulation, we cared most about the front of the building, because that's the front, the public facing side, right? And so making sure we got that right was important. And then it was like all of these building types, were somewhat of a consistent module, right? So it'd like you did the standard house or the narrow house. You could easily then figure out how to do the stack duplex and that sort of thing. was, we weren't trying to throw so many different things into the mix that would make it not transferable, know, both in the skill sets of the people developing them, but also just like, you know, the program itself and knowing how to utilize it. The other thing I should mention is, So South Bend, they had a lot of vacant lots like I mentioned before. And so what we realized is like, could very easily and we've seen this case, like somebody actually buys like seven contiguous lots next to each other and they might all be narrow house lots, right? And so what we did know is that though we wanted to kind of hone down and make it as concise as possible, the number of plan options that we had. we wanted to give people at least exterior variety. So if they had seven of the same house type next to each other, they could mix it up a little bit. so what we did is for each building type, like I said, it's just there, you know, like our narrow house, it's just the rectangular box, the plan's the same, but we have three elevations, there's three skins essentially that they can apply to one that's like more traditional, one's a little bit more classical, say, it's just like, you know, and then the last one's a little more craftsman style, cause there's, you know,

Austin Tunnell

that character is prevalent in the Midwest and in South Bend. so essentially someone could build, you know, the same house type, which is very similar to how like these cities and towns were built by local developers or whatever, you know, and local builders, like when they first were created, right? You'll notice that like in all these old neighborhoods, especially in some of the older cities like Chicago and other places, like it's the same floor plan. boom, boom, boom, but the buildings look so different because the columns and the porch are different. They've got a two bay porch instead of a three bay porch. They're doing siding and the other one does shingles or one's doing brick. But it's the same floor plan. And there's a great economy of scale of that. So I think it's kind of like we really lash onto that just learning from those lessons. Say, look, we don't need to make everything unique because that doesn't help. But let's just focus on the things that will make it really diverse and interesting and architecturally and rich. So it feels like a great traditional neighborhood and not that every plan has to be different and you need three different bays on the front of the elevation and that sort of thing. Because you don't really need that much to tweak it, especially after these things were built when we found as people live in them. You can even have three of the same house type right next to each other. The only thing that's different is maybe the siding color. That's it. That's oftentimes enough, and especially after 10 years of where people lived in it and like they put different furniture in the front porch, they landscape it differently. apply, you know, maybe they have shingles, you know, a wand or they have, yeah, shingles or like some other element that kind of adds interest is that they look really quite diverse. But yet they there's a certain like character that seems consistent. So that's kind of really what we were focusing on. It reminds me of Steve Mouzon saying of like, you know, diversity in a narrow range. Yes, exactly. You know, and that these buildings, we really want them to be background buildings. And you might stop and look at a building, but ultimately you're kind of their fabric buildings. Yeah. You know, they're not meant to each be an iconic piece. And like you're saying, you can achieve a ton of diversity in a very narrow range of just materiality, landscaping. And then the other thing reminds me of it. I've never forgotten it. But R. John saying of, you know, people complain about cookie cutter houses. The problem, like everyone loves cookies. The problem is they're

Austin Tunnell

bad cookies. know, I'm that's a pretty good analogy because it's, people, all the greatest neighborhoods that are most beloved tend to be very, very similar. I'd like to take a moment to thank the sponsors of our podcast for Sierra Pacific windows. We use their windows on the majority of our builds at building culture and our, one of our go-to products is their H3 casement window. We love casements because they open sideways, they open all the way, they kind of have this classic window feel. And I really like that you don't have that horizontal bar when looking from the exterior. And to get really nerdy on you, we really love their 5.8's putty profile on the window, which kind of feels updated, but still a very classic detail. Also, Sierra Pacific windows. If you are in the state of Oklahoma, Sierra Pacific has a showroom in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. And we actually purchase our Sierra Pacific windows through them. Because it doesn't just matter the window manufacturer, it matters who you're buying your window from, who's putting that order together, who's installing it, who's warranting it. And we work with both of these people at Building Culture and I was very happy to say yes when they asked to sponsor the podcast. All right, back to the show. Curious, know, before we kind of talk about just a few other resources, I know you've mentioned them a few, but. I know nothing's a silver bullet, nothing's perfect. And I know you mentioned briefly banks and appraisals and even utilities. Can you just talk about a little bit of the challenges, even once implemented, what are the challenges cities or developers, builders, architects are seeing? Yeah. So I'll like to kind of couch this within some examples, specifically our work in South Bank, Alizu, but I think it's applicable across the board and the other project works that I've done and experienced. A lot of times in-field development is really hard to finance for a variety of different reasons. And in missing middle housing, anything that's not a single family home or a multifamily apartment complex, it is hard to make it pencil and it's hard to get financing. We found this locally in Tulsa too. It's just like banks, the way they finance projects is they look at other projects that are very similar.

Austin Tunnell

and they pull up their numbers, they understand this is how much this is worth. When nothing has been built that's a fourplex in decades, they don't have the data to pull up comps to be able to then say, yeah, if you build the fourplex, this is how much it's going to be worth, or this is how much you're going to get in rent. It's very hard for them to apply a formula. And because of that, it's very risky for them. So it takes a forward-thinking lending institution to be able to kind of toe into this and think creatively about how they can evaluate the worth of a building like this, both in its passive income as well as just its overall asset value. And so in South Bend, they've been intentional. What we found is that communities or cities actually that are intentional about finding those lending institutions and trying to kind of connect them with people doing this work. it really helps to start with the needle. And in part because it's like, if you're just letting like market dynamics to let these people find each other and trust each other, it's hard, you know, but if you have a city coming in and saying, Hey, we really want to support this type of housing. You know, so we, know, the cities behind this, they're trying to connect and cultivate people suddenly like banks are a little bit more willing. I mean, there's all these different tools that cities can use to help kind of subsidize initial costs of it. And then once you have these, once someone builds the first fourplex, right. then it's like a piece of cake. It's just like, if you could just get through the hurdle of doing that first project, first couple of projects, then it becomes a lot less risky for folks that are either in the lending space or the development space at all, because you have a proof of concept and you know the pitfalls of it. So I'd recommend any community that really wants to get into this, you realize you have to get in to put your developer hat on and get into how can you connect and understand that everybody has a certain piece of the pie in which they're doing and working in and understanding what they're concerned about and their space and how that they could then, what do they need to kind of take that risk. The other thing about infrastructure too in these older neighborhoods, what we found specifically in philosophy orders in South Bend specifically, some of that infrastructure, the main lines were so old and so deep.

Austin Tunnell

that they were just like the utility, the cost to tap into one of those lines was just like astronomical for the cost of development. So it was like 20 some thousand plus dollars. And it was just like that. It just like blew some of these projects out of the water. Like it just blew them up, you know? And so they developed a, I'm not gonna get the name of this program right or wrong, but I think it's like a infrastructure grant or something like that program. where if they're developing in these lots, the city has set aside funds every year to a project could apply for, I think it's up to 20 grand for infrastructure, for like essentially utilities have fees of like plugging into the infrastructure. And then what they also found is like, it's actually cheaper for the city. If there are, if there's a street or two that like, there's a lot of stuff or a lot of projects going online soon, like the city will then identify those streets and go in and actually like replace the main line. and spend the money to do that versus like trying to essentially do that, you know, one project at a time on that street by supporting, you know, each individual developer. So they've just been very nuanced with that. But that that cost is real. And cities should realize that like, yeah, the streets might be there, but what's underneath them could be completely unusable. And that's a cost that it's really not fair for a local or a developer to be bearing that right. That's like public infrastructure. And you if you want any projects or any info to happen on that in any certain scale of just neighborhood infill, like it's not going to happen unless you actually have some skin in the game and invest alongside them as well. completely have. Those are great points. And I definitely agree on the infrastructure from being in that position as a builder and developer and just being like, this isn't a city subsidy. It's more like the city. I need the city to provide utilities. I can provide the building, but like we have to you know, our margin, a builder is like people imagine people make 30 % blah, blah money. And it's like most builders, true margins after overhead costs, everything may be 5%, 6%, 7%, maybe, you know, like these are not like, let's get super wealthy of this. You need some support, but to wrap up, I'd love to hear two last questions kind of about resources. So one is for anyone listening going, wow, this is super cool. My city does not offer this.

Austin Tunnell

What would be next steps to explore this? Because it all starts somewhere. it city council? And how would you go about it if you were going to a new place and trying to convince Tulsa to do it? Yeah, yeah. Well, a lot of it is like the economic development arm of a city. If they're interested in this, would... City council, obviously, if you have city councilors that are supportive of this, wanting to set aside funding to go and... do this sort of program. I think the first test, like whenever we've talked with other communities about it, the first thing step, and this is kind of how we worked in South Bend, was like, you got to sit down first, just like evaluate your zoning code, like do some stress tests because the zoning needs to be in place to then, you can use a program, developing a program like this to like overhaul your zoning, right? And that's kind of what the process, so and South Bend, we were on the project consultant team that helped to update their zoning code. And then after that, we did the pre-approved programs. we found is like, it's like in, it's kind of like the field of dreams model. Like if you build it, they will come. That's like not true in development. Like if you zone it, people won't necessarily build it, you know? So it was the natural next step. Like they, they did a great job of updating their zoning code. Like missing middle is a bit like allowed by rain and all these neighbors is fantastic, but it wasn't getting. built and that's when they realized that they needed an additional tool to do it. And Kalamazoo is different. did, we actually did it in tangent. So we were kind of developing the types and then testing them with the zoning code and identifying things that needed to change. And then the city was doing the same on their side. So you could do different, two different ways. But I think the big thing is, is I should say also the other thing is I often tell cities that have reached out about this is two big things. This is one of many tools. And if you look at Calendly's in the Bend and developing these programs, they've done all other sorts of things that went to make this successful and for this to make their overarching development ecosystem successful, right? So it's one of many tools that you need to be looking at, because there is no silver bullet, as you mentioned. But the other thing is you have to go through the process.

Austin Tunnell

I think that's a mindset for communities and for cities is like to think you're going to be able to just like, okay, we just need to get one of those. We just need to get one of those programs and then we'll be good. It's just like going through the process of developing the program, the intangible benefits and the things that you learn from it and the things that you can fix because of it is incredibly valuable. So I think like for any city interested, like they like this idea because of what they're hearing of the results. Like go through that process, hire smart people, hire people that have done this before. Because there's a lot of stuff that you learn through the process that we didn't know four years ago when we started this, that we realized was critical for its success. So yeah, hopefully that kind of helped provide a little bit of roadmap. And lastly, yeah, just hearing the resource again. mean, I know Liberty House Plans, libertyhouseplans.com that's got stock plans. What was the, gosh, the other one, Pattern Zones? Is that the Matthew Petty one? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's very similar. They have like a catalog of house plans. It's not open source or like it's not available to anybody. just through, it's just through municipalities they contract with. I see. Yeah, so you can. House Plans is consumer. You can go to this. And then is there a website for Kalamazoo or South Bend that people could go to? Or is that like behind a wall? No, no, no. Yeah, it's all forward facing, public facing. So if you just Google South Bend pre-approved plans, you'll be like the first thing that pops up. Kalamazoo is the same thing. They're still launching, so they kind of a beta version of the website, but it is public if you wanted to look at it again. If you just Google Kalamazoo pre-approved plans, you'll that will pop as well. And like I said, they're getting ready to launch that publicly, but the initial draft of the catalog is up there. So you can kind of see their building types. The other great thing that we found about it is like, is we've noticed that the programs have been launched and the catalog is out there. We've actually, I've had a couple of colleagues in South Bend, they were driving through another community, another town, you know, also in Indiana.

Austin Tunnell

and they saw a new construction of our stack of stack duplex that they found out was actually like based on the versions in our catalog. So it's great to see kind of the lake, like the inspiration of these documents and like one city does it and those not pre approved and another the plans are out there. And yes, the permits that is permits that isn't available to them because they're in a different community. But like they're able to learn is like a tool that kind of like has much greater impact than what you'd you'd expect by just providing the plan set. when it's calibrated correctly. Absolutely. Well, that's great. I mean, I'm so glad you're doing this work. I think it really is important work that kind of transform because you're right, you can get the zoning in place and then nothing happens because there's still too many roadblocks. And I totally agree that it's another tool and it's a very important one. So really glad for what you're doing. Thanks for coming on the podcast. How do people not to like, you know, not to give out your email or something, but how do people get in touch with you and keep in touch with you if they want through whether it's social media or website or. Yeah. So yeah, my email, I just give it out there. I we're interested in reaching out. It's probably the best thing. I'm website, but it's just jennifer at jgriffindesignllc.com. You know, go ahead, shoot me an email. I talked to a lot of people about these programs. They've reached out since they've seen what's been going on in Kalazan and South Bend. I love talking about it. I love helping communities to be able to figure out, this a feasible or viable option for us? So yeah, feel free to reach out. Okay. Very cool. Jen, thanks so much for coming on and I'll hope to talk to you again as this stuff unfolds. Yeah. Great. Thank you so much, Austin. All right. Bye. Bye. If you've been enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe and share with your friends and on If you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please leave us a five star review and take a screenshot, send it to playbook at building culture.com. And when we reach a hundred reviews, I'm going to send out a 10 building culture hats, like up there behind my head. If you're watching video and I'll send it to your house. Thanks so much for listening and catch you on the next episode.