Tall & Urban News

To address the national housing shortage, desert cities in the southwest of the United States are choosing density over sprawl. In New Mexico, a 2023 amendment to the state building code increased maximum building heights. Other cities in the southwest of are also changing building codes and zoning laws to promote multifamily development, easing restrictions on height and the number of units allowed per site. Multistory buildings are multiplying in Albuquerque, New Mexico as there is a demand for housing and more dense living. 

Albuquerque, its growth constrained by mountains, Native American land, and an Air Force base, needs additional housing. Through a plan called Housing Forward ABQ, the city wants to create 5,000 more housing units, adding to other private development, by 2025. Cities in the states of Utah, Colorado, and Arizona are pursuing similar policies promoting multifamily living. On its website, the city of Tempe, Arizona declares it is “growing up, not out.”

In Sante Fe, New Mexico, a multitude of midrise buildings sprung up in 2016, when the city passed a new housing ordinance that allowed developers to pay a fee to the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, replacing a previous requirement that 15 percent of the units in any new project had to be affordable. The city also relaxed its building code, including previous height restrictions, to “incentivize multifamily residential development,” according to the ordinance.

The appeal of multistory housing and increasing housing density as described by occupants, is in the shared amenities like pools, dog areas, community gardens, playgrounds, barbeque pits, and more community and close neighbors. 

Read more about this at the Wall Street Journal.