Infill housing seen as essential for restoring struggling communities

In recent years, delinquent, down-on-their-luck landowners in Memphis, Tennessee, have abandoned more than 80 lots, including one across the street from where Elvis Presley went to high school.

The local Community Redevelopment Agency, or CRA, eventually acquired the properties and cleaned them up. Now developers are lining up to build on them.

CRA officials are interviewing more than 20 small building firms that have expressed interest in providing much-needed infill housing on the lots scattered throughout the city in Shelby County, Tennessee. The agency said it intends to select the winning bidders by late summer and hopes that at least some of the builders can break ground this year.

"Getting new homeowners on them is really important for revitalizing the neighborhood," CRA President Andrew Murray said in an interview. "You need kids and families playing on the sidewalks, taking care of yards."

Memphis' Essential Housing Program is an example of efforts across the country to develop the infill lots as local officials and builders partner to improve neighborhoods.

In some cases, they're reinvigorating abandoned or blighted areas with new homes. Infill housing is also a tool in middle-class or upscale neighborhoods where home lots are in short supply. In those areas, developers are replacing functional but aging buildings with small housing projects.

Empire Communities is building 81 townhouses on the site of a former Baptist church on the east side of Atlanta. In nearby Watkinsville, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta, Monte Hewitt Homes and Bluepoint Construction Southeast are selling 21 two-story townhouses and 47 single-family houses as part of a mixed-use project that replaces a longtime wire manufacturing plant. In the Las Vegas area, local leaders in a recent housing forum cited infill development as a possible solution to the region's housing shortage, according to the Nevada Current.

Infill is an important, if gradual, step toward improving communities, according to Sean Salter, a finance professor at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.

"Given the limited availability of prime real estate near high-demand areas," he said in an interview, "infill housing practices help builders meet the needs of today's consumers while also improving existing neighborhoods by taking property that was previously thought to be unusable."

Still, as vital as it is, infill housing development isn’t as common as it should be, explained Sara Bronin, a professor at Cornell University and author of "Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes Our World."

"In city after city, we have logged outright bans on apartments, height caps on buildings, and onerous minimum lot-size requirements that mean you can’t build even small-scale housing," Bronin said in an email.

Municipalities need to "totally rethink the land-use rules that shape our world," she said. Until then, her National Zoning Atlas publishes an online, interactive map that shows, for instance, where developers can build housing without parking mandates and where homeowners can legally install mother-in-law suites.

Aside from Elvis, Memphis has long been known for its barbecue and blues music on Beale Street, as well as being the home of FedEx Corp. and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. At the end of April, the median home sale price in Memphis was $193,150, up 1% from the same period a year ago, according to Homes.com data.

The city of about 611,000 people along the Mississippi River has been losing residents in recent years. The city's population is down 3% from 2020, according to the latest U.S. Census figures.

People are moving away for opportunities, just as they do anywhere, but Memphis also suffers from an image problem. Officials say they're working to fix that.

In a state of the city address in January, Mayor Paul Young noted that citywide, crime dropped 13% in 2024 from 2023. Murders were down 29%. And he wants to continue the momentum.

"I want a decade where our most pressing issues are how to build fast enough to keep up with the population growth," Young said.

The Essential Housing Program and similar initiatives are key to that progress.

Infill housing often brings pushback from existing residents who worry they'll eventually be priced out of their neighborhoods. Murray said the CRA is trying to assuage those fears by giving preference to developers who build homes that would be affordable for low- and moderate-income households.

Low-income households are defined as those making 80% or less of the area median income, or AMI, while moderate-income families make between 80% and 120% of the AMI. Under those guidelines, a four-person, low-income household couldn't pay more than $155,000 for a house, while a four-person, moderate-income family couldn't afford a home priced more than $310,000.

The housing can be a range of types and sizes, as well as for-sale or rentals. The CRA said it is working with other agencies to provide reduced fees and expedited review and permitting. Financial incentives for developers include gap funding and grants.

The city is also in the process of revamping the zoning code. After a series of meetings with developers and lenders last year, Memphis is committed to removing red tape to make it easier to develop vacant or underused parcels, Young said in his state of the city address.

"Our ultimate goal is to be the easiest city in the country to do business with," he said.

One of the Essential Housing Program's lots is a 7,500-square-foot parcel at 660 N. Manassas St. It faces the old Humes High School, from where Elvis graduated in 1953. Humes eventually became a middle school, but the building closed last year.

The lot carries a medium-density residential zoning and likely will accommodate a single-family home, CRA officials said. One downside is that the lot sits on a main thoroughfare, but there's talk of an arts school possibly moving in and renovating the old building.

Officials say a new house with direct views of the King of Rock and Roll's old stomping grounds could attract considerable interest.

"People are pretty crazy about Elvis around here," Murray said, laughing.