City: 34K new housing units needed by 2040

Sioux Falls is on path to grow by nearly 75,000 people in the next 25 years, according to the city's long-term strategic plan.

City planners next month will unveil new details about how Sioux Falls has changed over the last six years, including the number of new residents, homes, roads and sewer and water lines.

The Shape Sioux Falls comprehensive plan, adopted in 2009 by the City Council and Planning Commission, updated the city’s growth management plan through 2035 to chart how much and where community growth will happen through the next 25 years.

Jeff Schmitt, chief zoning office for the city, said the planning office looks to the future every day to smooth the effects of a growing city and to let current and future residents know what they can expect in their neighborhoods. For residents whose neighborhoods are already developed, the plan doesn’t have much of an impact. But for developers, newcomers and existing residents looking to relocate, it is a road map for where new homes, businesses, roads and infrastructure will go - and a tentative schedule for when.

“Things change in five years, so maybe we should check and see where we’re at,” he said of why the 2035 plan is revisited periodically.

Here’s a quick look at some of the new numbers in the 2035 plan:

As of January 2016, Sioux Falls had a population of 173,300, compared to 153,888 when Shape Sioux Falls was established. That puts Sioux Falls on pace to eclipse a population of 233,139 by 2035 and 250,000 by 2040.

Schmitt said to keep up with that kind of growth, Sioux Falls will need at least 18,000 more single family units and 16,000 more multi-housing units. That would put Sioux Falls’ total number of housing units at 107,000 through 2040.

“The housing demand takes into consideration the declining average household size, an increase in the demand for elderly units, as well as in-migration,” according to the Shape Sioux Falls comprehensive plan. “The percentage of single-family housing units as a portion of the whole will decrease over the planning period as housing affordability and lifestyles change.”

So where will they go and when will those areas be developed?

Right now, Sioux Falls city limits encompass about 76 square miles of land.

“In 2040, we will need between 23 and 38 more square miles of land to handle the demands of this growing population,” Schmitt said.

Right now, the bulk of the city's growth is happening east of Highway 11 near Arrowhead Parkway and south to the East 57th Street area. Development is also happening in western Sioux Falls along Tea-Ellis Road and North Marion Road.

Once those parts of town are in-filled with homes, apartments, businesses and the infrastructure serving them, development will be focused in the southeast from 69th Street to 101st Street and east to the Iowa border.

These details and more will be presented during a series of open houses starting next week at the Downtown Library, 200 N. Dakota Ave., from 5:30 to 7 p.m.: May 5, May 12, May 18 and May 26.