Central five-year baseline, 2027–2031
Housing Data & Technology Innovation Challenge
Minnesota Housing
Policy Simulator
A transparent decision tool for testing how pro-housing reforms could change housing production — and inspecting the evidence behind every assumption.
2026 STATE PERMIT NOWCAST
23,267
Permit authorizations — not starts or completions.
AT A GLANCE
Counties with MnGeo open parcel coverage
Policy scenarios with low, central and high sensitivities
Live public GIS evidence layers monitored by the tool
MODEL A POLICY
What changes the production outlook?
Choose a reform and sensitivity. Open advanced assumptions to see the exact parameters — and change them yourself.
CENTRAL CASE
1,617
incremental housing units over five years
Total production117,951
Lift vs. baseline+1.39%
Baseline116,333
Baseline sensitivity95.9K — 136.7K
Central baseline is intentionally simple. Policy scenarios are standalone counterfactuals; do not add them without an overlap model.
POLICY COMPARISON
Five-year incremental units
WHY THIS TOOL
Policy analysis should expose its assumptions — not hide them.
The simulator separates the statewide production baseline from reform-specific response assumptions. Users can see what is measured, what is calibrated, what is uncertain, and what is only a sensitivity.
LIVE EVIDENCE MAP
Move from statewide scenarios to local evidence.
Map colors show evidence coverage, not predicted policy impact. Turn on live public layers to inspect parcels, permits, zoning and transit context.
Zoom to level 12 or closer to load parcel geometry.
County evidence
Grade B — parcel or metro evidence
Grade C — aggregate fallback
Selected
LIVE LOCAL EVIDENCE
Twin Cities residential permit units by year
Loading live Met Council data…
This chart is queried directly from the Metropolitan Council Residential Permits service at page load. It is separate from the statewide BPS baseline used by the policy model.
MODEL + VALIDATION
History, baseline and backtest.
The central baseline keeps the model deliberately legible. Historical permits, low/high sensitivity and alternative mean-reversion specifications remain visible.
PERMIT HISTORY
Observed + baseline outlook
2003–2025 are annual permit authorizations. 2026 is a nowcast; 2027–2031 show the flat central baseline and low/high sensitivity.
BACKTEST
Mean-reversion sensitivity
Correction: λ=0.10 has the lowest tested one-year MAE (3,144.3), slightly below λ=0 (3,168.5). The public central baseline retains λ=0 for transparency and parsimony; mean reversion remains a sensitivity.
Baseline
Hold the 2026 permit nowcast flat through 2027–2031. Low/high bounds use the historical 2016–2025 coefficient of variation.
Policy response
Each reform has its own transparent exposure and realization assumptions. The tool does not force a single elasticity across all reforms.
Local evidence
Live GIS layers provide parcel, permit, zoning and transit context. They validate exposure and feasibility assumptions; they are not parcel-level causal forecasts.
View policy formulas
ADU
policy gap × detached stock × annual take-up × 5 yearsMissing Middle
policy gap × detached stock × annual activation × net units × 5 yearsTOD
baseline × metro multifamily share × high-frequency transit share × 2+ share × zoning-binding × capacity uplift × realizationParking
baseline × 2+ share × affected share × (cost relief / post-policy fee benchmark) × pass rateFees
baseline × threshold-crossing shareTRANSPARENCY
Live source health + provenance.
“Endpoint online” and “data current” are different questions. The table reports browser-visible service status and metadata separately.
—sources responding
—last checked
67.8%county parcel coverage
| Source | Publisher | Type | Endpoint | Metadata / vintage |
|---|
USE WITH CARE
What this simulator does not claim.
It does not estimate parcel-level causal impacts.
It does not treat permits as completed homes.
It does not add policy scenarios together without an overlap model.
It does not treat missing parcel data as zero housing opportunity.