Battling ever-larger houses, Excelsior seeks stricter zoning rules to keep quaint

Lake Minnetonka may be known across the state as a place with grand houses and sprawling lawns, but the city of Excelsior wants to stay different.

With relatively small residential lots, the city nestled on the lake’s south shore wants to keep its quaint atmosphere — and the cottagelike houses that make it distinct from its neighbors. City officials aim to put new limits on house size, adding to zoning codes that are already among the strictest in the state.

“Getting the scale right is important so everyone can enjoy living here,” City Council Member Jennifer Caron said, explaining that too many big houses on small lots mean the community will be packed too tightly.

About a decade ago, Excelsior started seeing some of its older split-level houses and small cottages torn down and larger ones built in their place — something zoning codes were not prepared to handle.

“Some rather large homes went in,” Caron said. The problem wasn’t the houses themselves, or the newcomers who lived in them, she said, but how close they were to their neighbors.

“People feel crowded,” Caron said.

The city instituted zoning regulations in 2020 setting limits on how far back from the edge of a lot a house had to be, and how much of a lot could be covered by house. The city’s “good neighbor guidelines” provide a list of dos and don’ts for builders to stay in line with existing Excelsior houses.

But the big new houses keep coming, said Julia Mullin, Excelsior’s community development director.

“For the most part, the new homes we get are two stories and maxing out the setbacks,” she said.

Now, the city is working toward even more restrictive zoning to enforce what officials see as its character — meaning, primarily, smaller houses with a little more space between them. The new rules would also incentivize style choices such as placing the garage at the back of a lot, or building a split-level house instead of a two-story, by allowing a larger footprint for compliant houses. The council will vote on the proposal before the summer.

“The city wants to get it right,” Mullin said. “We don’t want to be too restrictive.”

In some Twin Cities suburbs, recent zoning changes have allowed for smaller houses — not enforced smallness. Inner-ring suburbs like Richfield and Bloomington passed rules last year to encourage density with zoning that allows smaller houses and smaller lots, in hopes new building would be a little more affordable.

The issues in Excelsior are different, Caron said. Many lots are considered small for the area — 5,000 to 7,000 square feet near downtown, Mullin said, similar to many in south Minneapolis. Excelsior’s smaller older houses are no longer priced like starter homes, Caron said. There’s not much room in the city of less than a square mile to build more.

“It’s not just a longtime resident/new resident thing. It’s not that at all,” Caron said. “It’s about trying to maintain a neighborhood character that allows everyone to live comfortably.”