But we also need more housing choices—not just apartments on one end and oversized single-family homes on the other.
That space in between is called missing-middle housing. Think duplexes, townhomes, cottage communities, accessory dwelling units and small apartment buildings that can fit naturally into established neighborhoods.
These homes can make sense for first-time buyers, retirees, downsizers, single parents and people who simply do not need four bedrooms, three garage stalls and a lawn that requires its own payroll department.
A Quick History Moment
Missing-middle housing is not some shiny new idea dreamed up by a planning committee.
Older neighborhoods often included duplexes, small apartment buildings and homes with additional units right alongside traditional single-family houses.
After World War II, development shifted toward larger suburban lots and neighborhoods designed around cars. Single-family-only zoning, bigger setbacks and parking requirements gradually made smaller multifamily housing difficult—or sometimes impossible—to build.
Redlining was part of this history, too. Redlining restricted mortgages and investment in many minority neighborhoods, while exclusionary zoning limited where lower-cost housing could be built.
Different practices. Same ugly result: fewer housing choices and neighborhoods shaped by rules that still affect us today.
The missing-middle movement is not reinventing housing. It is trying to bring back options we slowly regulated out of existence.
What Nebraska Is Doing About It
Nebraska passed the Municipal Density and Missing Middle Housing Act in 2020, encouraging cities to review their zoning rules and make room for more varied housing.
The idea is solid. Communities are being asked to examine whether duplexes, townhomes, smaller lots and accessory dwelling units can be built without every project becoming a full-contact sport at city hall.
Papillion and other Nebraska communities are now reviewing how their zoning rules affect housing supply.
Welcome Home is a nonprofit coalition of individuals, businesses and organizations committed to proactively making meaningful changes and improvements in the public policy arena that allow for significant growth in the starter housing market for families, first-time home buyers and future Nebraskans.
Will It Actually Be Affordable?
Here is where The Home Girl taps the brakes.
Builders still have to deal with land costs, labor, materials, interest rates, utility connections, permit fees, property taxes and enough local regulations to make a grown adult question every career decision they have ever made.
In Douglas and Sarpy Counties, the rules can change depending on the city, zoning district or jurisdiction involved. A builder may face rezoning hearings, design standards, parking mandates, lot-size requirements, engineering reviews, utility demands and approval delays before a shovel ever touches dirt.
Every delay costs money. Every unnecessary requirement costs money. Every one of those costs eventually lands in the buyer’s mortgage payment or the renter’s monthly rent.
We cannot hold press conferences about affordable housing while local government continues making housing expensive to build.
At some point, the nonsense has to go.
If cities truly want builders to consider duplexes, townhomes and smaller developments, the process needs to become faster, clearer and less expensive. Builders are not going to take on smaller projects with thinner profit margins simply because a planning document says the community needs them.
And then there are Nebraska property taxes. A smaller purchase price does not mean much if the monthly tax bill keeps climbing. A home is not truly affordable if someone can qualify to buy it but cannot afford to remain in it.
The real question is not whether Nebraska can technically allow missing-middle housing.
The question is whether we can stop smothering it with fees, regulations, delays and property taxes long enough for builders to actually build it—and for ordinary people to afford it.
Nebraska does not simply need more rooftops.We need homes people can afford to build, buy, maintain and remain in.
That is common sense.
Angela Peters, REALTOR®
The Home Girl
Keeping It Real Estate
402-215-1529
thehomegirlne.com