Link to full article at Champaign Showers
At first glance, 919 W. Hill looks like just another aging house on a quiet Champaign corner. It stands unassuming: two stories, faded yellow siding, the kind of architecture that blends into neighborhoods rather than commanding attention. Nothing showy marks its presence. This building has outlasted much of what surrounds it, standing through waves of development, decades of policy change, and generations of neighborhood evolution. It is a home, a marker of what cities once allowed, and a sign of what they now risk losing.
Since 1916, it has consistently provided multi-unit housing for students, workers, and retirees—people seeking modest, walkable homes close to transit and employment. Long before zoning codes or land-use debates shaped the area, the building was already doing what good housing should: offering stability, flexibility, and a place to live. It worked.
In 2024, however, this building fell into bureaucratic purgatory. After remaining vacant for several months, the city no longer recognizes its four one-bedroom units as legal under current zoning. To reoccupy them, new owners must apply for a Special Use Permit. Without it, the building faces effective downzoning—stripped of half its units, converted into something it never was, forced to become less useful precisely when Champaign’s housing needs intensify.
Some neighbors oppose the permit, claiming the building doesn’t fit, its tenants might prove noisy, or that its footprint creates excessive density for a small brick-paved street. Closer examination reveals that these arguments are difficult to reconcile with the facts. The building hasn’t changed—the zoning has. The neighborhood evolved around this structure, not despite it.
The conversation surrounding 919 W. Hill illuminates how policy decisions shape what cities permit and what they erase. This case intersects the past and future. Housing that has steadily served its purpose for generations now finds itself stuck in the middle of the debate about what kind of city Champaign wants to become. If we can’t protect this prudent, proven density, a harder question emerges: are we genuinely serious about solving our housing crisis, or are we only serious until it becomes inconvenient?
The Crisis Behind the Case
Champaign, like much of America, confronts a housing crunch that can no longer be dismissed as abstract or distant. Since early 2024, the number of homes listed for sale in Champaign County have dropped nearly 25 percent. Simultaneously, median sale prices have climbed over 20 percent. Rental inventory has diminished, and as University of Illinois enrollment continues rising, so do rents. For many residents, particularly those without high incomes or university backing, affordable housing becomes increasingly elusive.
Meanwhile, homelessness surges. The most recent count identified 279 people experiencing homelessness in Champaign County, a 30 percent increase within just one year. These aren’t abstract statistics but individuals and families caught between stagnant wages, rising costs, and a housing supply that simply hasn’t kept pace.
Champaign’s situation results from long-term choices about permitted housing types and locations. For decades, zoning regulations have severely restricted where and what kind of housing can be built. Much of Champaign remains zoned exclusively for single-family homes, often with large setbacks and minimum parking requirements that inflate construction costs. In a city needing more options—more small apartments, more duplexes, more low-rise infill—regulations too often default to rejection.
To its credit, Champaign has begun recognizing this challenge. In 2018, the city earned recognitionfor removing parking mandates in campus town and downtown. In 2022, it permitted the development of accessory dwelling units (ADUs). These reforms sparked community resistance and consternation, but reality proved quite docile. Twelve months after legalization, not a singledetached ADU had been constructed. Fears of rapid, unmanageable overdevelopment appear to have been exaggerated, or at least misplaced.
The city’s comprehensive plan advocates for more “missing middle” housing: the duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes that once comprised normal American neighborhoods. These changes move in the right direction, but only succeed when backed by action. Cities can’t praise incremental development in principle while rejecting it in practice.
This makes the 919 W. Hill case so revealing. When every additional housing unit matters—when even small apartments can mean the difference between stable housing and fruitless searches—why force a functional fourplex to become something it never was? Why retreat into bureaucracy precisely when flexibility matters most?
The housing crisis isn’t approaching—it’s here. If Champaign seriously intends to address it, the first step is straightforward: don’t remove usable housing from consideration. Yet even this simple preservation of existing housing faces resistance rooted in familiar concerns about neighborhood impact.
The Myth of “Neighborhood Character”
Opponents of the 919 W. Hill permit have framed concerns around a familiar phrase: “neighborhood character.” This language appears frequently in local zoning debates. It’s vague enough to feel inclusive, yet specific enough to stall change. Some neighbors argue that four-unit buildings don’t belong on streets zoned for single-family homes and duplexes, that approving permits would invite noise, congestion, and absentee landlords, shifting the block’s atmosphere.
Here’s the problem: the building already exists and has since the First World War. This isn’t a proposal for something new or unfamiliar—it’s a request to continue using a structure that’s been part of the neighborhood longer than zoning itself. If “character” means anything measurable, it should include existing homes and histories.
In fact, 919 W. Hill sits surrounded by mixed housing types—single-family homes, duplexes, multifamily buildings. The Plan Commission staff report noted over thirty multifamily units within two blocks. The building itself operated legally as a fourplex for decades until vacancy stripped its grandfathered-in status. The footprint isn’t changing. Density isn’t increasing. This represents continuity, not radical transformation.
Fears that small multifamily buildings depress nearby property values are widely overstated. Numerous studies from organizations like the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute have found no consistent evidence that duplexes or fourplexes reduce surrounding home prices. In many cases, neighborhoods that allow well-designed infill housing experience stable or even rising property values-especially when these units are near transit or job centers.
Concerns about infrastructure, parking, and traffic impacts are similarly inflated. A four-unit building generates far less demand than new subdivisions or large apartment complexes. Research by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission found that single-family detached homes generate up to 42% more vehicle trips per day than multifamily units. In walkable neighborhoods like much of Champaign, this gap widens further, as residents of smaller units are more likely to walk, bike, or take transit. The water, sewer, and road infrastructure already in place at 919 W. Hill has supported this level of use for generations. Keeping the building occupied doesn’t burden the system—it simply keeps it functional while generating property tax revenue that helps maintain those very systems.
When concerns do arise about noise, property maintenance, or tenant behavior—those constitute enforcement issues, not land use ones. A poorly managed single-family home can create as much disruption as a rental fourplex. Lasting neighborhood stability comes from fair enforcement, not from narrowing allowed housing ranges.
There’s a deeper risk in clinging to character as justification for opposing modest density. Too often, this term substitutes for more difficult conversations about exclusion and residential access. When small multifamily buildings are cast as intrusions, it signals—intended or not—that only certain household types belong in the neighborhood.
But Champaign has already committed to moving beyond that mindset. The city’s planning documents advocate for walkable, inclusive neighborhoods with mixed housing types. Incremental development forms a core part of this vision precisely because it supports the diverse, livable communities that character claims to defend. The best neighborhoods aren’t frozen in time—they evolve in ways that allow more people to participate.
If we define character by building appearance, 919 W. Hill easily passes. If we define it by neighborhood feel—walkable, functional, lived-in—it succeeds there too. The question is whether we’re willing to recognize this, or whether we’ll continue using flexible language to justify inflexible outcomes.
Gentle Density as a Common Sense Solution
If Champaign intends to meet housing needs without sprawl, without displacing longtime residents, and without losing existing neighborhood fabric, it needs more housing types like 919 W. Hill. High-rises and large developments aren’t the only path forward. Smaller, house-scaled buildings—duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes—can expand housing without disrupting neighborhood character. These homes fit neatly onto existing blocks, offer more options at lower costs, and expand residential accessibility.
This is what planners and architects call “gentle density,” and data suggests it works.
When cities allow modest residential density increases, housing production rises—and with it, affordability and access. Portland’s Residential Infill Project, which legalized up to four units on most residential lots, produced measurable increases in new middle housing construction. Minneapolis experienced similar trends after eliminating single-family-only zoning. In New Zealand, a 2023 study demonstrated that simply allowing small multifamily buildings in formerly restricted areas significantly increased housing starts.
These aren’t theoretical reforms but working examples of how cities can adapt without upheaval. By accommodating more people in areas with existing infrastructure, transit access, and amenities, they offer low-disruption paths to addressing high-pressure housing demand.
Champaign’s experience supports this approach. Since loosening certain zoning restrictions in 2018, the city has added over 220 new “missing middle” units—primarily small multifamily homes, and infill apartments. Progress has been steady and gradual, not dramatic, contradicting fears of rapid overdevelopment. This incremental change accumulates meaningful impact while preserving neighborhood character.
Gentle density often proves more affordable by design and aligns with changing demographics. When four households share one lot, land and construction costs stretch farther. Units tend to be smaller, more efficient, and better matched to modern living patterns. The average household size has shrunk to 2.52 people, down from the Baby Boom era 3.33 in 1960, with nearly 28% of households being single individuals.
These smaller, more efficient units serve people who prefer location and flexibility over space. This can include students, seniors, single adults, and working families who might not need three-bedroom houses with yards, but benefit from modest, well-placed homes near jobs, schools, and transit. While not always inexpensive, these units are often much more accessible for both renters and buyers.
Zoning against this housing type doesn’t just limit construction—it limits residential access to certain neighborhoods. That’s the deeper value of gentle density: it keeps communities mixed, dynamic, and inclusive, creating room for different life stages, incomes, and household types. In a university town like Champaign, such flexibility proves essential.
This can be accomplished without disrupting neighborhood appearance or atmosphere. Most duplexes and fourplexes are built to house scale: two stories, pitched roofs, porches, front yards. With basic design standards, they’re nearly indistinguishable from single-family homes. Many of the city’s most beloved older neighborhoods already contain this mix, and always have. Recognizing this, cities nationwide are embracing similar reforms: Oregon and Minneapolis have legalized small multifamily buildings throughout residential areas, while California’s recent legislation enables up to four units on formerly single-family lots.
Resistance often stems less from the buildings themselves than from assumptions about them: more renters, more turnover, less control. But these assumptions rarely prove accurate. Well-managed fourplexes contribute to neighborhood life as much as any other home. What they bring is simple: another way for people to live affordably and sustainably within the community. They bring opportunity.
919 W. Hill exemplifies this perfectly. It doesn’t need redesign or reimagining—it’s already fulfilling its purpose. Preserving it represents the easiest kind of gentle density: no new construction, no added height, no increased traffic or crowding. Just four one-bedroom apartments in an existing building, in a neighborhood that already includes multifamily homes.
This is what real progress often resembles: quiet, steady, and deeply practical. Gentle density follows a long tradition of incremental growth that was common before modern zoning complicated building modest, multifamily homes in residential neighborhoods. Champaign has expressed desires for more housing like this. The only remaining question is whether it’s willing to follow through.
The Stakes of Inaction
What happens if the permit for 919 W. Hill is denied?
On paper, the building could be converted into a duplex. That’s what the current zoning allows. But doing so would mean eliminating half of its existing units, spending more money to create less housing, and shrinking the option pool in a city already lacking sufficient inventory. It would also send a signal—to owners, developers, advocates, and neighbors—that even reasonable, historically consistent density forms stand on shaky ground.
This matters because when cities discuss embracing missing middle housing, they often speak abstractly. They adopt plans, hold workshops, and release reports. The planning process establishes vision. The real test comes later, at the permit stage, when someone proposes something small, reasonable, and consistent with stated city goals. That’s when the question shifts from aspiration to action: Are we prepared to treat housing as a public priority, or will we continue treating it as something requiring unanimous neighborhood permission?
The truth is that no single fix exists for the housing shortage. No one building, ordinance, or plan can resolve it. What makes a difference is steady, incremental change: allowing good buildings to remain, clearing pathways for small new ones, and approving solutions that accommodate more people without asking neighborhoods to sacrifice what they value.
That’s what’s at stake in this case. This transcends four apartments. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate that Champaign’s commitments to inclusive growth and housing affordability carry weight when it counts. Progress doesn’t always emerge through new initiatives. Sometimes it comes through restraint, by allowing what already works to continue working.
Preserving What Works
Return to the corner of Hill and Willis. The building remains and patiently waits for a resolution. From the street—assuming the public hearing yard signage has been removed—you wouldn’t know it’s the subject of a zoning dispute. You wouldn’t guess that a structure standing for over a century could face becoming less useful, less available, or less welcome.
But that’s the decision before us.
919 W. Hill is a genuine piece of the neighborhood: fully built, fully functional, and already aligned with the housing type Champaign claims to need more of. It offers small, affordable units in a walkable area, requiring no new development and no public funding. What it needs now is a clear answer.
Yes, to allowing people to live in a place that’s already proven it can house them. Yes, to aligning city decisions with city values.
If Champaign can’t say yes here and can’t protect housing that already exists, already works, and already fits, then all the planning language about gentle density, incremental development, and missing middle housing rings hollow. This is where policy meets reality.
What’s at stake is whether we make room or close ranks, and whether we view housing as something belonging in every neighborhood or something that must repeatedly earn its place.
The building at 919 W. Hill doesn’t ask for transformation. It only needs permission to keep doing what it has done for generations. That kind of continuity should not be controversial. In a city facing a housing shortage, keeping good homes occupied is one of the simplest things we can get right.
Jared Fritz is a Champaign resident and a lead member of CUrbanism Club.