Greenville legalized "missing middle" housing in 2023. Almost none got built, so the city may become a developer.

In 2023, Greenville rewrote its entire development code to make small multi-unit housing legal again. Three years later, city staff say almost none of it has been built. So the city is now weighing a bigger step, becoming a hands-on partner in getting these homes built rather than just permitting them.

The housing in question is what planners call the "missing middle." That is the gap between a single detached house and a large apartment block: duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes, cottage courts, and small courtyard apartment buildings. Most modern zoning quietly made these illegal, and Greenville's 2023 code overhaul, passed unanimously by City Council on June 12, 2023, was meant to fix that. The city's Neighborhood-Scale Zoning Districts now allow buildings of 2.5 to 3 stories and 4 to 12 units, up to a 16-unit maximum with a development bonus.

The target areas, drawn from the GVL2040 plan, are downtown Greenville, Augusta Street, and the Village of West Greenville.

What happened

The code change alone did not produce much housing. Now Planning staff want a pilot project on city-owned land, built in partnership with a homebuilder, to test the type and work through the hurdles. In the next fiscal year the city plans to collaborate with a private developer on a missing-middle pilot, and it may also launch a modular-housing pilot for affordable housing. To help, the city brought in Tony Perez of Opticos Design, a national missing-middle firm, who led a Planning Commission workshop on May 13, 2026. No site, unit count, or dollar figure has been set yet.

What most people think

The straightforward read, and the one the city's own move implies, is that legalizing this housing was not enough on its own, so the city is right to step in directly. City Planning staff hold this view. The evidence is in the record. The code was overhauled to allow these buildings, yet staff say few have gone up. On this view, a pilot on city land lowers a builder's risk, proves the product type can pencil out, and gives everyone a working local example to copy.

The other side

A local skeptic would argue the binding constraint is money, not the city's willingness to be a developer-partner. If legalization did not move the needle, the wall is economics: financing, utility fees, and construction cost, none of which a code change touched. Commissioners themselves raised those exact barriers. A fiscal conservative would add that putting free public land and city money into one builder's project is picking winners, and that a home built on a city-provided site tells you little about the deals a private developer faces at market land prices. There is also an affordability catch, since nothing yet guarantees a pilot produces homes middle-income families can actually afford rather than market-rate infill. On this view, the city should solve fees and financing before it takes on development risk.

What would settle it

Watch the actual numbers on the pilot once they exist: the site, the unit count, the price or rent, and how much city land or subsidy went in. Then watch whether missing-middle projects start appearing on private land with no city partner. That would show the code alone can work. Continued near-zero private production would strengthen the case that money, not zoning, is the wall.

Here is the question worth arguing about. If the same duplex or cottage court cannot get built on ordinary land at a price middle-income families can afford, does a city-subsidized pilot on free public land prove the model works, or just prove that free land works? Reply and tell me where you land.

Source: Greenville Journal.

Information only, not financial advice.