Counterpoint: Livability, not race, is the housing issue in St. Louis Park

The front-page article "Zoning divide" (Aug. 8) delivered a biased slant about housing density in residential neighborhoods — especially the suburban metro.

St. Louis Park (SLP) was singled out, highlighting an Elmwood neighborhood pushback against a multistory affordable housing development proposed for the neighborhood of predominantly single-family homes. The article pointed to racism as a way of accounting for the strong opposition to the development.

"It's all racial," the pastor of the Union Congregational Church, the owner of the property and advocate for the project, was quoted as claiming. This was a very unfair indictment of the Elmwood neighborhood.

Some context is necessary to account for Elmwood's objection to a large, multistory building in this small community of mostly modest single-family homes. The neighborhood is surrounded by relentless heavy traffic with Hwy. 100 on its eastern boundary, Hwy. 7 on the north, Excelsior Boulevard on the south and Methodist Hospital on the west. St. Louis Park for the last 15 years has had a policy of building multistory rental units on steroids. Since 2012, SLP has added an average of 224 rental units yearly.

The housing stock has been transformed to the point where 46% of housing units are rental and 54% are single-family homes. St. Louis Park has the second-highest density per square mile in the metro area — 2,295 residents. Only Minneapolis is more dense, while St. Louis Park's nearest neighbors' density are Golden Valley (975) and Edina (1,507).

The relentless drive to build these multistory rental complexes continues while homeownership, townhouse ownership and condo ownership decline.

St. Louis Park's housing plan has brought incredible traffic, with low walkability and bikeability scores for the city as a whole and a low-rated tree canopy score. Once you exit the few enclaves of single-family homes, you encounter big-time traffic. Installing a white line 3 feet from intense traffic does not make for a pleasant biking experience. The drive to build more large housing complexes only exacerbates the issue.

What remains of St. Louis Park's housing market is much more affordable than nearby suburbs. The median single-family house is priced at $265,000 — not the $400,000 mentioned in the article. St. Louis Park housing has not been involved in the tear-down-and-build-bigger trend that Edina and southwest Minneapolis have experienced.

However, this drive to build large-scale rental apartments throughout St. Louis Park is quickly changing the character of this once-quiet suburb. Aesthetics and livability issues are the driving forces behind Elmwood's rejection of this large multiunit apartment. These are not hoity-toity elites. Elmwood is a small neighborhood fighting to maintain the charm and character of its community amid surrounding chaos.

Jake Werner lives in St. Louis Park.