Housing Research and Practical Tools for Carlton County
Riley Barnhardt, LSAR Government Affairs Director
Elected leaders, key staff, and housing professionals gathered October 14 at the Otter Creek Event Center at Black Bear in Carlton for Planning for Growth, a one-day convening on how rural communities can respond to rising housing costs.
The Lake Superior Area REALTORS® and the Carlton County Economic Development Authority hosted the event, which brought regional and national speakers to Carlton County to present research and tools for promoting and managing growth.
Why Carlton County, Why Now?
Home prices in Carlton County have risen sharply over the past decade and have outpaced local incomes by a wide margin. The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s county house price index is up about 61% from 2020 through 2025 and has more than doubled since 2013[1]. Median household income rose about 10%[2] from 2020 to 2024, while the index rose about 43% over the same years. Demand is strong, and supply is thin, with new housing permits for 2020 to 2025 running about 30% below the 2000 to 2019 average[3]. Families who would have bought their first home are renting longer, doubling up, or leaving the county, and employers report losing candidates who could not find a place to live.
Planning for Growth was built around one question: what can a county and its cities actually do about it? Seven sessions covered research on why rural home prices jumped, a similar city that has managed fast growth, federal programs that can help pay for infrastructure, and design and policy tools that get more homes built, with each session focused on what local governments can use.
The Sessions
Research, Local Experience, and Funding
- Peyton Whitney, Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies: Presented research showing that rural home prices rose across the country after 2020, driven by migration, and fastest in vacation counties, a group that includes Lake and Cook, where median homebuyer income reached $125,000 in 2023 against a median household income of $50,500 in 2019.
- Mayor Brendan Pratt and City Administrator Mike Golat, Altoona, Wisconsin: Described how Altoona, which grew an estimated 18 percent from 2020 to 2025, has responded with mixed-use development, a new affordable housing fund, and a zoning rewrite that eases lot size and height limits.
- Alex Clegg, U.S. Department of Transportation: Outlined federal programs for financing infrastructure and other development and directed communities to the department’s ROUTES initiative (Rural@dot.gov) for technical assistance.
Design and Policy Tools
- Alicia Pederson, Courtyard Urbanist: Presented family-friendly “gentle density” built on small lots, courtyard blocks, and mixed uses, and posed the question of what that approach could look like in Carlton County.
- Salim Furth, Mercatus Center at George Mason University: Presented a menu of state and local options for speeding up housing production, including reforms that would make at least 95 percent of existing homes legal under local code, allow accessory dwelling units, and lower parking mandates.
- Benjamin Olsen, CITYDESKSTUDIO: Made the case for infill starter homes in northeastern Minnesota, describing how small-lot development puts existing utilities, streets, and schools to work. He named zoning, building code thresholds, appraisals, and discretionary review as the main obstacles, and pointed to clear, predictable approval of code-compliant projects as the path forward.
- Sam Naylor, Nominal and the University of Minnesota College of Design: Argued that housing quality is shaped by zoning, building codes, real estate norms, and procurement rules, and that small multifamily buildings offer better light, ventilation, and community than the codes usually allow. He pointed to single-stair reform and the jump from residential to commercial building codes as key barriers, and to design competitions in Zurich and Los Angeles as a way to build better housing.
Looking Ahead
Carlton County’s numbers aren’t unique, and counties across the country are seeing similar dynamics. A path forward exists, though. Several speakers pointed to low-cost local policy decisions: smaller lots, accessory dwelling units, more density, reduced parking requirements, and clear rules that let projects meeting the zoning code and other adopted standards be built by right.
Carlton County starts with an advantage. Its cities and towns already have streets, water, and sewer, and building where that infrastructure exists is the cheapest way to add homes. Altoona showed that a small city can grow fast and still shape that growth into a place people want to live. More homes mean more kids in school seats, more customers on main streets, and more workers for employers. They also mean the people who grew up here can afford to stay.
LSAR will continue to support communities that work to move forward with up-to-date market statistics, local expertise, and grant programs. Questions about the convening can go to Riley Barnhardt, LSAR, at Riley@LSARealtors.com or David Schafroth, CCEDA, at David.Schafroth@carltoncountymn.gov.
This program was funded in part by a Rural Outreach Grant, courtesy of the National Association of REALTORS®
[1] U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency, “All-Transactions House Price Index for Carlton County, MN [ATNHPIUS27017A],” FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, accessed October 26, 2026,
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/data/ATNHPIUS27017A
[2] U.S. Census Bureau, “Estimate of Median Household Income for Carlton County, MN [MHIMN27017A052NCEN],” FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, accessed October 26, 2026, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/data/MHIMN27017A052NCEN.
[3] U.S. Census Bureau, “New Private Housing Structures Authorized by Building Permits for Carlton County, MN [BPPRIV027017],” FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, accessed October 26, 2026, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/data/BPPRIV027017.