How Cities Are Cutting Red Tape and Making Housing Development Easier
Cities that have embraced preapproved plans include Spokane (WA), Roanoke (VA), South Bend (IN), Portland (OR), Macon (GA), Bryan (TX), and Claremore and Tulsa (OK). Want to add your pin to a map of cities that are welcoming housing? Click here to take the Housing-Ready City quiz.
Zoning and building codes have been around for so long that it feels impossible to change them, Matthew Petty said in a webinar. “But that’s not true.”
Petty is the current CEO of Pattern Zones, a company dedicated to addressing housing challenges, and a former council member in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He’s obsessed with housing, he says. In particular, preapproved plans, which was the focus of his presentation.
Preapproved plans make development more accessible to a variety of people:
Homeowners who want to build additions on their lots
Community developers who can't afford bespoke architectural drawings but want to provide their neighborhoods with something beautiful.
First-time developers who don't even consider themselves to be developers because they're simply fulfilling obvious needs in their neighborhoods.
“Every city hall that Strong Towns is visiting across North America has an interest in preapproved building plans,” added Edward Erfurt, Strong Towns’ chief technical advisor. For one, they have the potential to speed up the permitting process, easing the burden on city staff and local officials. But it’s not just about cutting red tape — they also create a shared vision between city officials and local builders. “When you have the site planner, building official, fire marshal and utility company all at the table, looking at the same plan with the common mission to develop a house product in your community, the game changes,” Erfurt argues.
In his presentation, Petty zeroed in on Claremore, Oklahoma. The college town of about 20,000 people enshrined a catalog of preapproved designs in its 2040 Comprehensive Plan. “We removed the barriers of development to encourage the spread of small business,” said the city’s director of Community Development, Andrew KnifeChief. “We are turning dirt in 20 days, and in a month and a half, it’s built!”
A postcard depiction of Claremore’s Main Street, 1911. The variety of architecture visible then has been mostly illegal to build in recent decades.
For Petty, the Oklahoma city was a good case study. For one, it was his company’s second prototype, but more importantly, it showcased a level of success he couldn’t have anticipated when he first began working with Claremore. He attributes much of that success to the speed of permitting. By the time the applications are filed, they’re basically complete, requiring only site-specific changes. This means permits are issued within five days, compared to the many months or even years it may take elsewhere.
That speed, plus the on-the-ground popularity of the program, has even lured subdivision developers, Petty notes. Developers who typically only pursue larger-than-life projects are now flirting with and even taking on smaller infill projects, which Petty hopes will make places like Claremore more financially productive again.
“It’s a totally different approach to conventional development,” he says. ”Incremental development asks, ‘What can we do with what we already have while preserving what we already have?’”
The Power of Preapprovals
Claremore is a trailblazer, for sure, but it’s not alone. Spokane, Washington; South Bend, Indiana; Roanoke, Virginia; Macon, Georgia; and even nearby Tulsa, Oklahoma, have streamlined small-scale builds with preapproved plans.
North of the border, Burnaby in British Columbia released a catalog of 12 designs in January 2025. The city’s Housing Design Library "makes a variety of home designs available to small-scale developers and residents, connects people with reputable designers, and potentially reduces time and costs associated with the design, permitting and construction process,” its website states.
Like with most cities that have embraced preapproved plans, Burnaby’s design library follows legislative changes that actually allow duplexes, fourplexes and other small-scale multiunit housing by right on plots formerly zoned for single-family homes only. In the summer of 2024, British Columbia mandated that cities above a certain population amend their zoning bylaws to permit the following:
Up to three units on lots measuring 3,014 square feet.
Up to four units on lots greater than 3,014 square feet.
Up to six units on lots greater than 3,025 square feet and within 400 meters of a bus stop with frequent service.
This legislative update eliminates the headaches of rezoning should a developer want to build a duplex on a blighted lot or a homeowner want to add to their property. Of course, it doesn’t mean that any of these changes would happen overnight — or even at all. It just simplifies the process should the opportunity arise.
Homes built with plans from the Burnaby Housing Design Library.
Burnaby abided by the deadline, upending a zoning regime that has limited the city’s flexibility since the 1960s. Six months later, it furnished a catalog of preapproved designs for the homeowners and small-scale developers interested in adding to their neighborhoods. While there are only 12 designs so far, there are more than 100 variations of how a single lot could be developed. And according to a city survey up to 80% of residents approve of the new move.
“Who doesn’t want nice buildings in their community?” Erfurt noted. “Preapproved plans provide the municipality the opportunity to promote nice buildings that result in a tangible set of predictable building plans instead of months or years developing design regulations with very mixed and disappointing results.”
Plans from the Burnaby Housing Design Library.
Strong cities are built by many hands. Preapproved plans create a simple, smooth and repeatable process that makes it easier for residents to invest their love, capital and sweat equity into their place.
Simplifying regulatory processes through measures like preapproved plans moves cities one step closer to being housing ready. If your city has taken this step, click here to take the Housing-Ready City quiz and identify your next steps.
Asia (pronounced “ah-sha”) Mieleszko serves as a Staff Writer for Strong Towns. A dilettante urbanist since adolescence, she's excited to convert a lifetime of ad-hoc volunteerism into a career. Her unconventional background includes directing a Ukrainian folk choir, pioneering synaesthetic performances, photographing festivals, designing websites, teaching, and ghostwriting. She can be found wherever Wi-Fi is reliable, typically along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.