Local housing fixes are getting very specific: zoning tweaks + vacant-lot starter homes

A lot of the most concrete housing moves right now aren’t sweeping national plans—they’re city-by-city pilots and code changes aimed at unlocking small-scale supply.

In Overland Park, a short-term zoning amendment is meant to let a “missing middle” pilot move forward, including cluster-style layouts (like cottage-court concepts) and access via shared driveways—patterns the city has historically limited.

In Moline, the city is proposing to use city-owned/underused lots plus about $1M already budgeted for housing efforts to build a small number of standardized starter homes, sold to owner-occupants selected via lottery (with resale proceeds recycled back into the program).

Big picture: these programs won’t solve a multi-million-home shortage alone, but they show where local leaders are trying to reduce friction—design, lots, approvals, and who the homes are actually for.