Density happens, if you let it.

For as long as I've been following the politics of urban regulation in New Zealand, I've been hearing Hugh Paveltich lauding the successes of Houston in successfully delivering affordable housing on the city's outskirts through the use of innovative infrastructure funding models, and Kiwi urbanists excoriating the Houston model for sprawl.

And now Houston's showing that up can go well with out.

More Houstonians are choosing to live in high-rise and mid-rise buildings and the trend is about to spread to an unlikely place — outer suburbia.

Consider this: A developer is considering a mid-rise apartment in Pearland, the Brazoria County ‘burb, south of Houston. And a high-rise condo is being talked about for The Woodlands.

Amazingly, a significant number of home buyers have been requesting high-rise living units in the suburbs, realty experts say.

Amazing. Suburban areas where people are free to put up apartment buildings, without NIMBYs blocking them everywhere with complaints about denigration of local amenities or planners insisting that density can only happen in specified areas where they think it ought to happen.

Downtown also has a number of mid-rise apartment buildings underway, typically seven, six or five-story projects.

Two-story apartments just aren’t being built any more. Land is so expensive that developers are forced to build taller buildings to cover their costs and make the project financially viable.

Many of the new Inner Loop apartment projects have at least four floors of living units stacked atop two-level parking garages.  So even though it may not be high-rise, the residences on the sixth level often get a very decent view of the skyline. The Inner Loop of Houston has a significant number of mid-rise multifamily projects under development — the most in decades. 

The trend is even spreading to the suburbs.

Pearland is about get a four-story mid-rise residential building, just west of Highway 288, says realty broker Brad LyBrand of NewQuest Properties.

“It’s a first for Pearland,” LyBrand says.

The dense urban-like development plan for the Pearland site makes sense because two hospitals (read: job base) are under construction within walking distance, says Houston developer Allen Crosswell, who has owned the acreage for several years.

Bottom line: Houston is changing. Houston led the nation in population growth last year. The city is more urban and residential development is more vertical.

I wonder how they've managed to get suburban apartments without NIMBY action.