Triplex, 472 East Granite Avenue, City of South Salt Lake, with a painting propped up against the house

When I took the photo I didn't notice the painting propped against the facade.

I've been collecting photos of small multunit "single family" properties that are embedded within Salt Lake City, but also neighboring communities and other cities in the Salt Lake Valley.

Often a duplex will be on a corner, with entrances on each side of the street.  Or on an arterial.  Or a few next to each other.

There may be triplexes or even larger properties.

First I started trying to photograph these buildings because to me, compared to "everywhere else" this kind of property sensitively located within a neighborhood extends the range of housing types available to people representing a wider range of needs and incomes.  Not every house in a neighborhood should be a big single family detached house, especially as more households nationally are as small as one person.

Arlington County Board Chair Katie Cristol hears from citizens holding signs demanding more affordable housing at a county board meeting in Arlington, Virginia, on Nov. 12, 2022. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

Second, I think it's a better way to visually express how a change in the zoning of traditionally single family residences to up to fourplexes can be done without wrecking community character.  

My photo album, Duplexes, Triplexes, Quads etc., demonstrates this.  Plenty of the buildings date to the 1930s and before, while others are more contemporary--to me less attractive but still illustrative.

Duplex, English Tudor style, 1601-1605 700 East, Salt Lake City.

I love the great variety of brick used in the Prairie style era of homebuilding in Salt Lake.  Unlike DC, which is dominated by red brick, red brick is rare here but there are so many other colors.  This isn't Prairie style but it's around the same time.

I plan on putting together a few pages of a brick color pattern book, partly as a way to guide architectural style decision making in the Sugar House area.

This is important because of the trend nationally to do this kind of rezoning in places like Minneapolis, Arlington County, Virginia, etc. ("Single-family Zoning: Can History be Reversed?," Joint Center for Housing Studies).

And the opposition to it, not just in Arlington County.  Although Brookings says that's because of bad messaging, "‘End single-family zoning’ is bad political messaging."

The funny thing is Salt Lake City is "considering" changing single family zoning, and many people are against, while there are all kinds of positive examples within the city already.  It's just that it's so subtle people may not realize it.